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FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



FIELDS AND 
BATTLEFIELDS 




By 
No. 31540 




NEW YORK 

Robert M. McBride ^ Company 
1918 






Copyright 1918 ^^ 

by 
ROBERT M. McBRIDE ftf COMPANY 



Printed in the United States of America. 



Published August, 191a 



AUG 29 1918 

- - - -^ 

©CI.A501606 





CONTENTS 




CHAPTER 


PAGE 


I. 


THE TOWN ..... 


I 


II. 


THE CONVENT .... 


• 15 


III. 


FESTUBERT ..... 


. 30 


IV. 


BESIDE THE CANAL 


• SI 


V. 


WALPURGIS' DANCE 


' 71 


VI. 


A CHRISTMAS .... 


► 97 


VII. 


IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 


. 122 


VIII. 


THREE WOMEN 


. 141 


IX. 


THE HIGHWAY 


. 162 


X. 


AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 


185 


XI. 


"what IS YOUR RELIGION ?" . 


212 


XII. 


HOMO LOQUITUR 


237 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

CHAPTER I 

THE TOWN 

"My eyes I lend to you, but not my heart." 

Old Play. 

THE town of Bailleul stands upon a hill and may 
be seen over your shoulder for a two days' 
march, but the town of Steenwerk lies below on 
the plain of Flanders and peers above the orchards and 
willow trees surrounding it. Bailleul is a center of 
gaiety. Bands play of a Sunday afternoon in the 
market place, Charlie Chaplin is seen every night by 
crowded audiences in the Y.M.C.A. Cinema, and the 
correct incidental music is provided. There are, or 
were, concerts every evening at the Caisse d*Epargne. 
All the important journals — La Vie Parisienne, The 
Cambridge Magazine, The Listening Post, John Bull, 
The Feathered World — can be borrowed or bought; 
and English beer can be found in limited quantities. 
Also an English soldier once chose a wife among the 
daughters of Bailleul and married her: yet it is not 
of Bailleul but of Steenwerk that I wish to write. 

^Written before the German offensive of 1918. It is 
feared that these towns are now in ruins. 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

There was a time when Steenwerk set herself to rival 
in gaiety her sister on the hill. It was during the 
tenancy of the market place by some Motor Trans- 
port men of great originality and enterprise. There 
was no regular brigade band on Sundays, but these 
talented ones could render the opening bars of The 
Rosary on the horns of their motor-lorries. They set 
up a cinema of their own and worked it themselves, 
they assembled an orchestra of one man and two or 
three instruments, but the instruments did not long 
survive. Concerts were given at which R.A.M.C. men 
sang, and if marriages were not made in Steenwerk that 
was nobody's fault. 

For in our own phrase there were "beaucoup 
Mamselles" in Steenwerk. I recall as sweet a vision as 
any of its kind. Once on entering the town I passed 
a young person wearing a red dress and apron. She 
carried water pails slung over her firm shoulders and 
walked in spite of them with the grace of perfect 
simplicity, or of perfect art. She did not raise her 
eyes. Her face was pale — a maid pale in the spring. 
Doubtless she thought of no khaki soldier but of one 
in cornflower blue, with perhaps a coffee-mill of hers 
in his pack, a red sash round his waist, and eyes more 
eloquent than ours. 

Yet Steenwerk, little city of the plain, thou art ever 
remembered not for youth, or pleasure, but because 
from thy precincts we first looked back to England 
from a land at war. 



THE TOWN 



In Steenwerk we first became European. But it was 
from the old we chiefly learned our lessons. 

A good soldier is always learning lessons, if not 
from his military duties, then from his civil duties. 
Having cut himself off from the ties and obligations 
of common life, he is the more bound in honor to 
observe them in others. It is also his inclination to 
do so. In the army, although "no expressions of 
sentiment are allowed," this is but a confession of 
weakness. La vie militaire is above all la vie senti- 
mentale. For sentiment we enlisted, we live, we die, 
and until the sentiment called Liberty is become a 
fact of this world, armies — those quixotic bands — 
will continue to exist. And while we endure the 
isolation of army life sentiment alone saves us. Thus 
Sergeant Booky proposed to French ladies once a 
month. When questioned on the subject he replied, 
"Practice makes perfect." He had a song of his own 
for sympathetic occasions — 

"Almong soldar no bong, 
Anglay soldar tout sweet." 

This, when sung to an effective tender tune, had 
made great impressions. French women understand 
these matters very well, but sometimes their cursed 
native realism makes itself felt. 

Thus Sergeant Booky to my knowledge received 
something like a coup de grace on one occasion. We 
were together in an estaminet when he opened the kind 
of conversation that led up to a proposal. The lady was 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

something beyond youth in years, in person both moth- 
erly and attractive, with rosy cheeks and brown eyes. 
She stood at her stove adding more coffee into the cof- 
fee-pot which sat on the fire day and night all the 
year round. She waited, listening to Booky, and 
stirred the pot as she listened. A man wearing 
corduroys sat near by smoking a clay pipe and spitting 
solemnly at intervals into the hearth. The conversa- 
tion reached the stage at which the proposer said, 
''Voulez vous aimer, desirer, alter promenarder avec 
moif" Others joined in. The lady of the estaminet 
replied to some one else as well as to Booky, ''Mais 
Old, deux ueufs, anglay beaucoup promeiiard" Then 
Booky said, "Aves vous un mari a la guerre ou voules 
vous moif" At which the lady looked at him with 
arched brows for a moment in silence, then as to her- 
self she remarked, "Mais c'est un enfant,'^ and con- 
tinued to look at Booky in a disconcerting fashion as 
though she was comparing his height and probable 
weight to that of her own little boy of the same age. 
Some time after this I received a commission from 
Booky, when I was about some shopping on a large 
scale, to buy him a tube of pomard hongroise for his 
moustache. 

But Mack, who like myself preferred serious to 
tender conversation, discovered the watchmaker of 
Steenwerk and advised me to make his acquaintance. I 
did so on a later occasion. 

The watchmaker of Steenwerk lived in the smallest 



THE TOWN 



shop in Europe, so small indeed that the shop win- 
dow contained only his head and beard. From outside 
we peered through at him as though we were visitors 
at the Zoo, at the cage of a small bear. The shop 
within was so low that a man of ordinary height had 
to bend his head. Not more than two customers could 
occupy the shop at one time. Monsieur the watch- 
maker sat in his window, but he could serve at his 
counter by turning in his chair. When you entered 
he would unscrew the magnifying glass from his eye, 
take one or two keys and cog-wheels out of his beard 
and replace them carefully on his table, turn half 
round, and then call for Marie his wife. "Please, 
Monsieur," said he to the customer, "be careful of my 
counter; it was broken and I had it mended, and then 
but the other day un ecossais leaned upon it, a weighty 
man, and you see it is again broken. Marie, here is 
one who wants deux aiguilles — it is not possible." 

Monsieur had very small soft hands. He was a 
great craftsman and known all over France for his 
knowledge of clocks and watches, not only of modern 
but also of the ancient makes. He told me this him- 
self on one occasion and added, "I am a man of edu- 
cation." Monsieur believed that the war would by 
then have been over if Jaures had not been abime by 
the traitors. But whatever the plight of France, over 
which he was complaisantly tragic, it was well for 
Monsieur and his business that Madame Marie, his 
wife, had not met with the fate of Jaures. He called 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

for her every two minutes, whether for his spectacles 
mislaid beyond his immediate range of vision, whether 
for some tiny tool of his craft, or for the smoking 
lamp, or more often to soften some soldier customer 
whose watch had been overlooked for too many weeks. 
At the sound of her name she appeared noiselessly as 
a ghost, through a half -closed door, and was at his 
side at once scolding and explaining softly. She had 
a white pasty face but with sprightly eyes, and she 
always wore a pink square garment. She had an air 
of having grown old indoors and of knowing her shop 
as an oyster its shell. She had also a kind of mother- 
of-pearl beauty composed of soft shades of patience, 
gentleness, and hope. She never despaired in her 
mediations. She would enter to find a customer come 
after his watch — some stolid youth in khaki, standing 
gloomily before her husband who rallied him for being 
impatient, mondain, for not considering the political 
and economic conditions of France, for not respecting 
the good faith of the educated craftsman. Then 
Madame Marie, having already overheard the custo- 
mer's request from behind the door, lost no time in 
words but took out her order-book and bent her head 
down to the page. The customer in reply to his own 
shortcomings would say, "But we're likely marching 
to-morrow. Mister. YouVe had it a fortnight and 
you said it would take you doo joo, two days — never 
mind a pal of mine's wat you've lost altogether." For- 
tunately, neither side fully understood the other, and 



THE TOWN 



as Monsieur would often end his discourse with a 
sweet and childish smile across his beard, it was diffi- 
cult to be angry with him. Madame Marie would then 
lay the order-book before him on top of all the tools 
and cog-wheels, and together they would move their 
fingers up and down the columns. Two pairs of spec- 
tacles and two pairs of sorely-tried old eyes were 
exercised to decipher their own writing. At last, after 
infinite discussion, a number would be agreed upon, 
while the customer sank into a deeper gloom. Then 
three or four little packages tied up with string would 
be routed out as likely to be the missing watch, two 
of which — Mon Dieu — had the same number upon 
them. But then after all the thing was explained. On 
one package some one had written Corporal Tom- 
Tom, and was not the customer's name Corporal 
Thompson? and the watch after all has been waiting 
for him for more than a week. 

When you emerge from the smallest shop in Europe 
it is likely that you may have an idee fixe about a 
drink. You can get a glass of citron opposite, and a 
slice of pain d' epice, but you will have to eat and 
drink standing up with your head In a cloud of fancy 
aprons hanging from the ceiling. But If you are an 
"old soldier" you will turn to your right up the main 
street and go Into Le Cerf estamlnet for the purpose 
of drinking French beer. 

Now it is fairly well known that old soldiers never 
die. 



FIELDS AND BA TTLEFIELDS 

"Old soldiers nevER die, 
"They fade away." 

But it may be worth while to hear about one who did 
die, and to hear it in the proper setting, for the story 
was going about at that time fresh from the mint. 
Le Cerf is a long low room fitted with little tables 
and decorated with hand-painted hunting scenes in 
panels along the walls. The hunting scenes were in 
greens and browns. The animals represented were 
full of vigor and set off by little churches and houses 
in the background. It is a hot sultry evening. The 
place is crowded and is filled with smoke. Beer^lies 
in little pools on the floor, or on the tables. Conversa- 
tion of all kinds in many different dialects is heard on 
all sides. But here is a group dominated by a single 
speaker. He is obviously an old soldier by his hard- 
bitten face and round black eyes like two plums in a 
plum pudding, and although he tolerates his younger 
listeners he addresses his conversation to another of 
the same breed, but of the silent variety, who reclines 
upon the chair immediately in front of him. At su- 
preme moments in his conversation the speaker will 
throw his remarks into the form of a question. But 
this is only for effect. No reply is desired or expected, 
and the reclining one opposite opens his mouth only 
for the purpose of admitting beer, occasionally nod- 
ding his head sagaciously. 

These Falstaffs understand each other perfectly. 
The younger listeners, members of a new degenerate 

8 



THE TOWN 



army, may learn lessons if they wish. The theme of 
the conversation was the base quality of malt liquors 
as supplied by the French. "You can get stout 'ere," 
said the speaker, glaring at one of the painted panels 
on the wall, "but it's now good, ifs nozv good. 'Ere 
'ave I been 'avin' a one, a t' other, or a 'alf-and-'alf off 
the bloomin' reel waitin' for them blinkin' 'ounds to 
catch that alleluia stag these two hours, but I dunno, 
that bloke in a mess jacket wiv a chase-me fewer on 
his 'ead won't let 'em slip, 'e won't. No, chum — ^this 
ain't a Christian country for no Christian war wiv no 
drink you'd give the 'oly name of beer ter. And some 
of our orfficers they'r that innocent they couldn't lead 
a little child down a garden path. They couldn't — not 
a little child — they wants to get a rope bloody ladder 
and climb straight up to 'eaven — some of 'em. They 
do straight. On my life. Why, there's some of 'em 
will talk to yer like a farver fust and then 'ave it 
you're drunk arter. I've said to some of 'em, I've 

said Why, there's some of 'em never seen our 

lads boozed in this flamin' country at all ; they can't do 
it. / know for a bloody fact they can't." Here the 
speaker leaned forward breathing beer upon us and 
sending his round black eyes right and left as if in 
alarm of spies. 

"Now you mayn't belee what I'm goin' to say, but 
if you'll belee me it's the gorspel truth. Did you know 
Charley Crabtree in the Corps in the old days ? Make- 
weight Charley they called 'im 'cause he knew wot 



F I E L PS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

corpses made up to after P.M.s. You knew 'im — ^he 
was post mortem orderly — no one could beat him at 
that job out in Africa wot with the flies and the heat 
and the corpses and one thing and another, but blimey 
he could drink like a fish. / never seen any one like 
him. Well, out 'ere he was Corporal Crabtree! At 
the beginning of this 'ere war he put up two stripes on 
his own, and his South Africa ribbon, and 'listed. Of 
course he were no chicken, and they were glad to 'ave 
him in Aldershot in September. But out 'ere! Lord 
lummy he didn't half carry on ! He couldn't do with 
this beer. Of course he wouldn't of come over if he'd 
a known, he'd 'ave arranged otherwise, 'cause he was 
fifty-two / knew for a bloody fact. But if you'll belee 
me it took 'im so bad — his not getting drunk and one 
thing and another, all along of this 'ere beer, and 
mind he'd left no stone unturned, that he vowed he'd 
get boozed if he took all day over it. Stripes! He 
didn't mind about his stripes. 'The Lord gave and 
the Lord may take 'em away,' he used to say. Well, 
one day he cut all parades. He knew what he were 
in for. Stayed away all bloomin' day. Of course he 
knew of a little house on the quiet where he'd fixed it 
up. His unit were in rest at the time. He stayed away 
all day and did the thing pukker. And he must have 
put some away, too, for I knew Makeweight Charley 
wot he could put away. But could he get boozed on 
this baptizing liquor? . . . Could he?" . . . 
Here the speaker sat back in his chair and, turning 

XO 



THE TOWN 



his head slowly, gave us a kind of foreshortened glare, 
expressive of the fiercest scorn. 

"Could he?" he shouted. 

Then bending forward again suddenly he continued. 

"And what riled him most — this was from wot I 
heard after. There were two cooks knew where he 
were, silly bloody fellers who'd get boozed on their 
own tea, and they got blindo and wanted to take him 
back to billets with 'em singin* and carryin* on. 

"But he wouldn't go with 'em, he wouldn't. Walked 
back by hisself and give hisself up to the guard sober 
as a gent. Yus. 

"And if you'll belee me he died in the night of a 
broken 'eart. 

"They called it V.D.H., but I knew better. But " 

And here the speaker leaned forward again, and 
held us with his eyes. 

''Only think what he'd been through/' 

But to reflect properly on the enormity of this and 
other tragedies, let us leave that wan beery atmosphere 
and its clink of glasses and continue our way up the 
main street. Perhaps the salient guns can be heard 
and you may overhear one officer's servant confide an 
important rumor to another. Through the press of 
men, N.C.O.s, interpreters and others, a staff motor- 
car hoots its way impatiently. It is a relief to find 
some place of quiet. There are several little shops 
facing the street with shop windows, but apparently 

IX 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



no doors. The way to enter one is to choose a hall- 
door near by, open it, descend some steps and open 
one of several doors until you find the proper parlor. 
Here you may buy picture post-cards, Menier choco- 
late, Sunlight soap, embroidered aprons, Euthymol, 
chocolate pralines, beetroot sugar, and shaving soap. 
In these little parlors some conversation with your 
hostess will often bring a hundred friendly qualities to 
light. In a back parlor you may be treated to coffee 
in a china bowl ^nd stir it in a blessed silence while 
you look out on a strip of back garden where vege- 
tables grow in neat rows. In this haven, forgetful of 
time, you may watch Madame polishing the rails of 
her stove, or having undressed her child hold him 
upon her lap and repeat, sentence by sentence, a little 
Latin prayer. A chain clock on the wall ticks out the 
hours convenient to eating, sleeping and praying. The 
great stream of Life underflowing the gnat-like gyra- 
tions of men is revealed for a moment ; and for a mo- 
ment you, too, may dip in it and ease all thought, all 
baneful flutterings. 

At the end of the main street is the market place 
through which all are now strolling back to billets. 
The tall Gothic church occupies most of the square 
and around it the big transport lorries are lined, wheel 
to wheel. Along one side of the square there runs a 
little river, beyond which are small gardens and the 
houses of prosperous citizens. Each house has a pri- 
vate bridge across the river. At seven o'clock every 



12 



THE TOWN 



evening the priest crosses one of these bridges on his 
way to church, and presently some women in black 
and little girls follow him in. There are many of us 
who will not forget the first time we, too, pushed open 
the red baize door and entered a French church. Out- 
side, at that hour, hurrying men's feet, noise, laughter 
and the sound of a mouth organ. An early star shines 
down upon the scene, one of many such little vortices 
of men and their intentions to be found at that mo- 
ment all over Europe. But within, candlelight and 
the soft noise of Aves. The women kneel before 
their shrines, the children go hand in hand from one 
saint to another down the aisles. The priest beckons 
to the confessional, a figure rises and follows. Here 
also is a pageant, also one of many to be found at that 
moment all over Europe. Consider it well. It is not 
unrelated to that other noisy pageant outside. Indeed, 
without this within, perhaps that without would be 
impossible. Without, we soldiers, politicians, drink- 
ers, journalists, blowers of mouth-organs, all of us 
eternally engaged in fighting, in interpreting, in inflict- 
ing wounds, in binding them up, in sacrificing our- 
selves, in all forms of quixotism, which we are pleased 
to call reality. Within, Humanity eternally compen- 
sating itself for its own follies, already united in a 
community of sorrow. 

The red baize door swings to behind us again. The 
pleasant reassuring noise and spectacle again present 
themselves. And we — ^are we not the van of the com- 



13 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

mon men of Great Britain enlisting in their hundred 
thousands? Are we not the first of Kitchener's Army? 
Shall we, too, swirl and vanish and leave no trace? 
Shall our deeds, too, need to be compensated for? 
Perish the thought. It is ever important to remember 
one's own importance. What great things are already- 
whispered by officers' servants and other persons who 
really know. And Italy has just joined the Allies. 
The war will be over in three months or four. "Which 
way to the Divisional Rest Station, chum? Turn to 
your right at the end of the square and you'll find the 
flag on your left. Good-night." 



U 



CHAPTER II 

THE CONVENT 



"What is pourquoi? . , . 
I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues 
That I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting." 

Twelfth Night. 



IN the days of yore, in peace time, the convent was 
occupied by nuns who led a holy life and, with other 
ministrations, kept a school for girls. But even before 
our day they had all departed. The school was closed 
to pupils, and nothing remained except the images of 
saints on brackets, texts and pictures of the Sacred 
Heart which hung on the walls. The convent build- 
ings were not in themselves old, yet they retained an 
ancient atmosphere among their fruit trees. They 
were divided from each other by little paddocks and 
vegetable gardens. We had arrived one evening in 
May after a march of twenty miles or more, and 
when we fell out I and others sat down in one of these 
little paddocks and leaned our backs against an apple 
tree. A faint old-world odor greeted us, pigeons 
flapped their wings upon the tiled roofs, a cat jumped 
over the wall. Hither we had come from England — 

15 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

by sea, by train, and on our own feet : and rested here 
and not elsewhere. 

But the place had soon become the scene of incred- 
ible labors, for the divisional sick to the number of 
fifty had here to be accommodated, and "old world 
odors" were not appreciated by medical science. 
Wards, receiving-room, isolation wards, pack store, 
dispensary, bath-house, quarter-master's stores, cook- 
houses and billets for the ambulance, had all to be or- 
ganized out of a number of detached buildings of one 
and two stories in height, all of which communicated 
with each other through courts and round paved cor- 
ners in a bewildering way. The orderly sergeant had 
to rise fully five minutes before his wont in order to 
thread this labyrinth before reveille. 

Of all the roles picturesquely filled, in that our first 
Divisional Rest Station, I recall that of Peter G., the 
bath orderly, as the most romantic. He and his tubs 
found themselves in a pleasant vinehouse, a brick floor 
beneath them, and the vines above them hanging from 
the glass roof. He heated his water at a copper and 
himself set upon a tub under a large statue of the Ma- 
donna, who presided over the company from a high 
pedestal, her head wreathed in vine leaves. Peter G. 
was an Irishman and a Catholic, and knew how to 
respect the Madonna. He marshalled his patients at 
the proper times and moved between their naked 
bodies through the steamy twilight of his realm with 
a grave and deliberate air, and with a sense of mys- 

i6 



THE CONVENT 



tery. Peter had known many jobs in his time and 
had visited many places on his two feet before the 
war, but this job appealed to all the complexities of his 
nature. Here he was at once priest, medicine man, 
stoker of fires, stern usher, collector of tales, sanitary 
expert, and penseur; and was, moreover, left very 
much under his own orders as far as his particular 
duties were concerned. 

Patients for admission to hospital came first into 
the receiving- and casualty-room, which had formerly 
been a school room of the convent. It was large and 
airy, and had a floor of black and white tiles. The 
patients sat in a row under a large text, "Laissez venir 
a moi Us petits enfanfs" Here one morning I found 
myself on duty. I collected the sick reports from the 
patients and arranged them in order for the M.O., who 
stood in a dcgage way at his desk at a suitable dis- 
tance. The sterilizer shone in the sun, and a scrubbed 
table supported such implements as a thermometer in 
a vase of carbolic, a tongue depressor, a case of dental 
instruments. The Primus stove roared softly in a 
corner and Harry E., with another orderly, wxre al- 
ready at work dressing boils and applying foments. I 
collected a new sick report and waited for the M.O. 
to initial the last. The patients were not, as a rule, 
suffering from severe complaints, but to the uninitiated 
in those early days many of them appeared quite 
serious enough. I frequently envied the calm of the 
M.O. who, though no older than myself, had many 



17 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

years' experience of out-patients behind him. This 
calm I noticed grew more pronounced when the pa- 
tient gave us a series of those dark and baffling symp- 
toms so distressing to the ear of sympathy. 

"Next patient," and a robust-looking youth came 
forward. 

"What's your trouble?" said the M.O., without look- 
ing at him. 

No answer. The patient opened his mouth. He had 
probably not heard the question, owing to the noise 
of the Primus stove. 

"What's your trouhlef The M.O. turned round 
and allowed his professional eyes to dwell upon the 
case. 

"Please, sir, I have shooting pains from my right 
kidney to my left tentacle — and all over " 

For myself I believed the man already as good as 
dead, but the M.O. did not seem to be startled. 

"How long have you been like this ?" 

"Please, sir, I felt it come on last Wednesday, but 
then it was in my knees." The M.O. put one hand 
behind the patient and with the other gave him a 
friendly dig in the stomach. 

"Do you feel that?" 

"No, sir." 

"Have you a sore throat? Show me your tongue.** 

The patient tried to speak and put out his tongue at 
the same time. A strange gulp was the result. 

But the M.O. appeared suddenly to rouse himself 

i8 



THE CONVENT 



from the meditation and banged his fist on the desk. 

"A good purge, orderly. Ol ricini an ounce and a 
half and let him rest a bit in the mortuary. Next 
patient." 

The mortuary, so-called, was a nice room next door, 
not often used for corpses at that time. Sometimes 
the nature of the purge was left to the N.C.O. or to 
the orderly, who had to choose between three then 
commonly in use. Sparky, who was a corporal in 
those days, had a method of his own for deciding the 
suitability of a purge for a given patient. 

"Let's see, you want a purge? What's your re- 
ligion?" 

"C. of E., Corporal." 

Then Sparky would repeat to himself an empirical 
formula — 

"Presbyterian — Number nine. 
R.C. — Calomels three. 
Church of England — Castor oil." 

This was a case of showing initiative on Sparky's 
part. If religions have a column to themselves in A 
and D books, on sick reports and ward-sheets, why 
not, he argued, connect them up with reality in some 
suitable manner. But this Church and State method 
which we adopted from Sparky once brought me into 
a very singular situation. 

One morning a motor transport sergeant appeared 
in the receiving-room with a sick report all to himself. 

19 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

He explained his symptoms loftily, but he did not 
greatly impress the M.O. on duty. He was awarded 
a homely remedy. Now, as his religion was correctly 
noted down R.C., it followed that three little tablets 
of calomel would meet his case. These he took, be- 
lieving them to be something soothing, and other than 
what Nature designed, and departed again to his 
motor-lorries in the market place. The day passed for 
me in an ordinary way. The Primus stove required 
attention; some equipment that rightfully belonged 
to ordnance pannier A was found lurking in ordnance 
pannier C, and had to be restored ; I read a little in the 
book I had begun in England ; the M.O. gave me some 
thoughts on varicose veins; an excitement occurred 
over a cup of tea made with tea tablets, which were a 
novelty in those days. Yes, the day was an ordinary 
one. Sparky came on duty after tea and I went out 
for a walk. My steps led me past the church, and fol- 
lowing my destiny, I entered. The usual quiet scene 
presented itself. Three widows knelt in a row telling 
their beads. But my attention was attracted to the 
fine western gallery supporting the organ, from 
whence came sounds of some one very busily ham- 
mering and also of an occasional organ note. I found 
the turret leading to the gallery and ascended it. The 
hammering came from the center of the organ. A 
man in khaki stood in front of it staring into the 
pipes. I started likewise. What holy work was here 
toward? 

20 I 



THE CONVENT 



"He's a-mending of it," said the man. 

"I hope he knows about organs," I said. But my 
words produced a terrible effect. The hammering 
ceased a moment and a face peered through the pipes 
full of rage. I did not recognize the face at first, but 
caught a kind of association in the words that fol- 
lowed. 

Thus spake the organ: "Blimey if that ain't the 
bloke that gim me them three little blinkin' tablets this 
morning." Bang — bang — crash. "Upset me more 
than if I'd swallowed all Sankey and Moody. I didn't 
want a purge — told yer I didn't want a purge. Wot 
d'yer think I've got an inside like this 'ere organ not 
played on for ten years then?" Here an eight-foot 
pipe roared deafeningly: "Wot d'yer call yerselves?" 
Bang. "Call yerselves Medicals?" Bang. Crash. 
"You and yer orfficer. D'yer know what I'd call yer ? 
I'd call yer C. C. sharp, a mob of blinkin' stomach 
plumbers. Wait till I get this vox humana mended 
and I'll let yer know — what — I'd call — ^yer " 

The face through the pipes, the fury and grotesque- 
ness of the creature, the suddenness of the onslaught, 
took me completely by surprise. I was unable to re- 
ply. I cast in my mind for some explanation. It 
seemed as if I had encountered one of those malicious 
spirits said to haunt sacred edifices in the Middle 
Ages : known and pacified by our gothic ancestors with 
statues of griffins, gargoyles and the like. But cer- 
tainly it needed some assuagement here or the wi- 

21 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

dows below would be disturbed and the souls of rheir 
husbands lack prayers. But presently the spirit ex- 
tracted itself in some mysterious fashion from the or- 
gan. Then I recognized the motor transport ser^;eant 
who had reported sick that morning. Certainly his face 
had a meagre, gargoyle expression. 

But I remained silent before him. How could I 
explain ? 

"R.C. — calomels three," I repeated to myself. But 
I felt he would not understand. I stood with bowed 
head waiting for the storm. 

But apart from his organ body he appeared to be 
of a less tumultuous nature. His next words were 
gently uttered, and he seemed softened. "Mending 
organs is my 'obby," he said. "I got an afternoon off 
owing to you and turned my attention to this." He 
laid his hand lovingly on the manuals. "I've promised 
to mend it for the priest. It's not been played on for 
ten years, as I remarked before, but it's not a bad 
instrument." 

*T am interested in organs myself," I said. 

After that we were friends and entered into con- 
versation. He told me to return the following evening 
at six o'clock and that he would then play to me. I 
left the church musingly, and with a sense of the 
mystery of circumstances. 

But there were other medicines administered in the 
receiving-room besides the three I have mentioned. 

22 



THE CONVENT 



Most of the ailments were homely ailments and need- 
ed homely remedies. Dover's powder tablets was a 
favorite one. We, the helots of medical science, 
understood from our masters that if a Dr ^r's powder 
tablet failed of one remedy it had still a fair chance 
of hitting one of two others. There must have been 
the wisdom of the ages in this, for I have known 
Dover's powders cure an astonishing variety of ills. 
That receiving-room was, after all, a very useful 
schooling for much that was to follow after. There 
we first learnt how to take the scientific attitude to 
patients when necessary. That is, we learnt to re- 
member on occasions that if a patient is left to him- 
self and to Nature he may get better, and if he gets 
worse he goes down the line in a few hours to where 
he may have better luck further on. In later times, 
when over two thousand casualties would come 
through a single ambulance station in twenty- four 
hours, the scientific attitude became a necessary re- 
quirement of the mind; and when the turn came to 
some of us, in the destinies of war, to play the patient 
ourselves, we recognized the scientific attitude in the 
eyes of others with more misgivings, perhaps, but 
without recriminations. 

Patients who were marked Medicine and Duties re- 
turned to their units, those who were admitted to hos- 
pital were first entered with all proper detail in the 
A and D book and were then directed to the pack 
store where they left all but personal belongings, and 



23 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

their clothes. The pack store was another of the con- 
vent schoolrooms, with a map of La Patrie, if I re- 
member aright, and another picture of The Sacred 
Heart, that anatomy of melancholy, hanging upon its 
walls. From the pack store they would walk to the 
main hall of the schools to be received into the sick 
ward, where big Sergeant Harry received them grave- 
ly and again entered them up with all proper particu- 
lars in his ward book. A stretcher bed, a pair of flan- 
nel pyjamas, and a couple of army blankets awaited 
them. 

In the day time patients could stroll about, smoke 
cigarettes, and sleep in the May sunshine. The little 
vegetable gardens were planted with the greenest of 
vegetables on the blackest of soils. The gravel courts 
and paved yards were honey-combed underneath with 
water tanks and cesspits. These lay side by side 
and were often of vast extent. A number of ancient 
pumps communicated with this under-world. Hence 
an ingredient of the old-world odor, and in this con- 
nection we had reason to recall the remark of a famous 
traveller : "The people of this land put statues of the 
saints over their wells to protect them from the 
pest, but since they dig middens alongside of them, 
their prayers are not always answered." 

Behind the convent buildings lay a fine orchard 
where the wagons were packed and the transport 
horses picketed. Here the A.S.C. men had their 
bivouacks under the apple trees, here the blacksmith 

24 



THE CONVENT 



labored at his little forge, and the orderly who steri- 
lized blankets carried on his beneficent work at the 
steam-heater. We had a legend that a spy had once 
been apprehended from the orchard. He was ob- 
served at the other side of the hedge ploughing the 
same furrow again and again and listening to what the 
army blankets on the hedge were telling each other 
before they were put into the steam heater and ren- 
dered silent. 

But the citadel of the convent was the house of 
Madame H., who performed the duties of caretaker, 
and whose parlor was entered from the convent yard. 
She lived with other little ladies all dressed in black 
and all connected by family ties. Her kitchen and 
parlor were used by us as a canteen. All day long 
the making of coffee, the boiling of eggs, the serving 
of men at the round table, the washing of dishes, the 
scrubbing of floors, continued in these small apart- 
ments. Yet at all times the place was neat and tidy 
and the rails of the stove shone brightly. On the 
wall of the parlor there hung three pictures — Millet's 
"Angelus," the portrait of an eminent cardinal, and 
a lithograph of a battle in the suburbs of Paris in 
1870. In the evening there was always a crowd of 
men at the round table eating boiled eggs and petits 
pains. The basket containing the petits pains had 
often to be sent round a second or third time to the 
hoiilangerie to be filled. We learnt our first lessons 
in French at this table, and here a wit of our ambu- 



25 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

lance had remarked, "An oeuf is as good as a feast." 
If goodness, gentleness, and virtue could make a 
duchess, Madame H. was such. She dressed in black 
serge, she was short, her face was red with cooking, 
yet she was truly dignified. The other ladies who 
lived with her also wore black serge. They were no 
shorter than she, indeed, one was quite tall and grac- 
ious, but they were all secondary to Madame. When, 
in her turn, she brought in the casserole or poured the 
coffee, the procedure was different, it had more weight. 
The sugar was placed on the table by her with more 
empressement, and although she might utter no word, 
the men at table felt impressed. 

This dignity was never impaired by continual con- 
tact with her customers, who came in at all hours of 
the day and would often crowd round the stove and 
make cooking very difficult. But her manners were 
never disturbed and she had always her little joke. 
There was no Englishman she could not laugh at, but 
no one ever laughed at her. Only after a hard day at 
serving, after rising early and attending an early Mass, 
she would joke less, but be more courteous than ever. 
When she spoke to us, she always enunciated very 
slowly and distinctly, as though she hoped by that 
means to capture our slow understanding. In the 
same hope she would repeat her phrases carefully to 
us as though to an infant class. "Monsieur — a — deja 
— eu — deux — petits — pains — Monsieur — aime — beau- 
coup — les — petits — pains — bein — cuits." 

26 



THE CONVENT 



These ladies and many hundreds of Frenchwomen 
adopted the English soldier and spent their whole life 
cooking, serving, washing and sewing for him. Many 
did so as a means of livelihood, but many also for 
quite unselfish reasons: and no one will ever know 
what gentle affaires du coeur have lain hidden, among 
a variety of motives, often perfectly concealed by a 
frank friendship and concern. Madame herself had 
had her weakness. The man she ever remembered had 
been quartered at the convent schools some months 
before, and on one occasion she asked me to translate 
a miserable scrawl he had sent her. I had found great 
difficulty in rendering into French the stereotyped 
phrase with which he opened, "I hope you are in the 
pink as it leaves me at present." 

"J^espere que vous etes dans la rose " 

"J'espere que vous vous rougissez comme il mc 
laisse " 

I had finally to give up the attempt and adopt a base 
paraphrase. But shall I ever forget the letter of 
sweetness, wit and piety she addressed to him in 
return? She wrote on every second line of the page 
and desired me to insert the English. After that one 
letter of his, he sent her scarce anything but a field 
post card, although on occasions his wife would write 
to Madame in friendly terms. 

At last the time came for us to leave Steenwerk, and 
one evening we marched away along a southern road 
under summer leaves. I did not see the little town 

27 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

again for nearly a year, but then when the chance 
came I called at the convent schools to revisit Madame 
H. She received me as a guest and made profound 
inquiries. Many ambulances had come and gone and 
still her round table was supplied with hungry men. 
She laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "Ce — Mon- 
sieur — aime — beaucoup — les — pet — its — ^pains — ^bien — 
cuits." 

As she did so I realized again those strange early 
sensations of our first weeks of active service, when 
thoughts of home were still with us and the higher 
savagery of war was not yet learnt. On leaving I 
took occasion to inquire after the man whose letter I 
had once translated. Madame stood in shadow at 
the door. She laid her hand on her heart and spoke 
politely, but without expression. He had not written 
anything to her for a long while, and then it had been 
only a field post card. Yes, she had had a letter from 
his wife — "une lettre assez complaisante." Evidently 
he was forgetting. 

She bade me farewell at the opened door, and her- 
self gave me instructions how to cross the market 
square. 

O women of France, humble in estate yet proud and 
mysterious, you who have by nature all the courtesies 
of the human heart, who seem to leave by comparison 
only appetites to other nations, how long shall we 
remember lessons first learnt from you? You 
have found in the English soldier a true quality of 

28 



THE CONVENT 



purity, you have taken him to your heart and are re- 
warded by "une lettre assez complaisante" from his 
wife. 



29 



CHAPTER III 



FESTUBERT 



THE CHURCHYARD 

'What age! What shattered earth! What blinded eyes 

Of Heaven, as at a sight too sick to endure! 

What more hath heart to hope, hath soul to lure! 

Here Desolation in his kingdom dies. 

Here men have wept, here prayed, here made surmise 

Of God, and lo I their bones lie naked, pure, 

In ghastly resurrection premature, 

'Neath yonder Christus pleading at the skies. 

But Nature, equal-hearted to her kind — 

How sways she here? Look where yon shell-hole deep 

Has made a grave for graves — you there shall find 

The twisted rose in bloom, blue larkspur peep, 

Pale evening-primrose and convolvulus — 

In token of indifference to us." 



WHEN at a remote point of time we shall look 
back at the 191 5 front, some of us will think of 
Ypres with its bath-rooms exposed to view on first 
floors, some of the chocolate truffks to be bought in 
Armentieres, some of the quarries and prairie of the 
field of Loos, and some perhaps of Ploegsteert woods 
with its graves and primroses. 

But for myself I shall think first of harvest time at 
Festubert. 



FESTUBERT 



Ypres was feared and hated, its spirit was wholly 
evil. It was whispered that sentries on silent nights 
had gone mad, listening to the slow dropping of bricks 
in the deserted streets. The spirit of Armentieres was 
conciliatory. Shells visited it respectfully, avoided 
cake shops and left the active brewery in peace. 

But Festubert was neither tragic nor burlesque. I 
recall its whole nature as operatic. Scenes, actors, 
costumes and situations were less in themselves than 
the score to which they were set ; to the movement of 
the summer breeze through the willows, the humming 
of aeroplanes, the pizzicato of bullets, the chattering 
of swallows under deserted eaves, to the rich atmos- 
phere of the land in harvest weather. The day seemed 
all afternoon, the night a meeting of two twilights. 
The whole was a quiet pastoral, to be followed at no 
great interval by the Walpurgis Dance of Loos. 

Festubert, like other historical sectors, had its tra- 
ditional fateful secret, its charnel beyond the waving 
reeds and over-grown apple trees. But even then it 
was not often alluded to, and by now may have faded 
from the recordless annals of the ranks. But a few 
weeks before the time of which I write the Canadians 
had made a famous charge through Festubert orchard, 
and men still told each other the romantic story of 
"Private" Hardy and of his bombing exploit. 

Our main dressing-station was situated at the point 
where houses, though still inhabited, ceased to have 
glass in the windows. It was a low one-storied build- 



31 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

ing with a little garden in front of it where roses and 
candytuft grew. The house consisted of a large room 
used as a surgery and two smaller rooms opening out 
of it used for everything else. From this main dress- 
ing-station we went forward every night to two ad- 
vanced dressing-stations situated one at Festubert and 
one at La Plantin. Most of our work was done at 
night. 

One afternoon I was treating the surgery with for- 
malin to keep away the flies. Remarks and scraps of 
conversation came through the door from the next 
room where Staff- Sergeant Bill and Chatham the dress- 
er were at some leisurely work before the afternoon 
meal. Two walking cases had come down to us that 
morning. Both were suffering from slight shell-shock. 
One had a few cuts about the head. The other was not 
wounded but appeared to be more unnerved than his 
companion. By now they had sufficiently recovered to 
sit in the next room and take an interest in passing 
events. I heard the voice of Bill : "You'll be all right, 
old flower, don't you worrit. By Chrise, he looks a 
proper Sandy, don't he." 

The patient thus addressed, muttered something 
hopeful in reply, which led to a repetition of his story ; 
of how "he and me" were standing in the queue for 
breakfast, nineteen of them in all with nineteen mess- 
tins waiting to be filled. Of how the shell — "a bloody 
big yen" — came too quick to dodge. Of how "he and 
me" seemed to be all that was left of the party, and 



X2 



FESTUBERT 



in consequence had not felt like breakfast, and so had 
eaten nothing all day. 

I noticed that Sandy alone contributed to these nar- 
ratives. The other patient scarcely spoke at all. 

"Tea's ready," called Archy, one of the dressers, as 
he rushed in from the farmyard with the dixy. He 
was a round-faced, excitable youth who loved argu- 
ments. Tea-time was his hour. 

For tea we sat round an old rickety table. The 
party consisted of the two patients, Staff-Sergeant Bill, 
Archy, Chatham the dresser, and myself. 

"Bags," said Bill to me, "it's your turn up at Festu- 
bert to-night, ain't it? Don't forget to bring them 
water-bottles back, 'cause I'm told we're being re- 
lieved to-morrow ; and while you're there don't forget 
to look at that sewing-machine, it's beyond the church 
to the right; you can't miss it, it lays in a bit of a 
yard. It just lays there. It's worth your while to 
see it." 

"Why's he so interested in sewing-machines?" said 
Chatham in a low voice. He was a pale, refined look- 
ing man who suffered from deafness. He was busy 
opening a jam tin for one of the patients. 

" 'Cause it reminds him of home," said Archy mis- 
chievously. "You mustn't blame him though — we 

mustn't blame him — ^he's only a workin' lad " 

Archy had to duck to avoid a heavy hand. 

"So I am," said Bill, "and could eat three clerks 
like you before breakfast. Don't talk to me of clerks— 



33 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

sixteen shillings a week, bread and lard and a three- 
inch blood}? collar." 

At this the two patients giggled. The patient called 
Sandy had a bandage round his head which made his 
yellow hair stick out in queer tufts, and his freckled 
face was red from the heat; but he was rapidly re- 
suming his good spirits. 

Chatham, who was educated at Harrow and on all 
occasions preserved his gentle manners, was drinking 
his tea as though in a drawing-room. He now bent 
over to Sandy and said, "Are you feeling better? 
Yes — ^you were hit by a shell — ^yes. How was it?" 
Whereat Sandy told his story with confidence for the 
fourth time; and although Archy was shouting next 
his working ear, Chatham pretended to hear it all, as 
was his skilful custom. 

"Subside, Archy, or go and have your tea with the 
cook." 

The other patient, who had not been wounded, re- 
mained silent. His hands still shook and he seemed a 
little shy. He was younger than his companion, his 
face was childish and inexpressive. He had large 
blue eyes and his chin had down upon it. We tried to 
include him in the conversation. I suggested that 
perhaps the shell was one of the new boomerang shells 
which took back prisoners — Fritz's latest, and that 
the seventeen unaccounted for might therefore be con- 
sidered safe. I was sorry the moment I had spoken. 

34 



FESTUBERT 



His face remained quite unemotional, but his eyes 
filled with tears. 

"I couldna' rightly say," he said. 

We were all silent for a moment, and then Bill 
banged his list on the table and said, "Well, there was 
some one lookin' after you, anyway. Wot I say is, 
you be thankful for your luck, my boys, both of you." 

Silence. 

"Yes, father," said Archy, jumping out of arms* 
reach. 

"Not you, you kipper," said Bill savagely, "and you 
get all them stretchers shifted when youVe taken the 
dixy back, and look sharp about it." But Bill was al- 
ways at a disadvantage after a meal; his fatherly in- 
stincts then expanded and shone in his face, and for 
a while the bully sergeant was submerged. Mean- 
while Sandy had been talking to Chatham, and pres- 
ently we were all listening. 

"Have you heard about this, Bill?" I said — "an old 
trench captured a while back from the Germans, where 
there's still " 

But Sandy broke in to continue his own story. 

"IVe never been there myself," he said. "WeVe 
not allowed over there. They say officers only may 
go and look in. . . . Of course, this is what I heard 
— see. . . . It's not filled in yet — see . . . the old 
trench — and there's an officer's dug-out there, and 
four dead Fritzies still playing cards. ..." 

"What— officers?" 



35 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"Aye. Four officers, and they're all yellow from 
lyddite. What they think is a lyddite shell must 'a 
burst in the dug-out and stiffened them. Anyway 
they're all yellow — faces, hands, uniform and all — and 
the last card turned up is the ace of spades." 

"What were they playing, I wonder?" 

"Don't know what they were playing, but there they 
are still sittin' round the table." 

"Ow— bloody 'ell," said Bill. 

"What's that?" said Archy, coming back into the 
room and seeing every one's state of tension. But all 
were silent a moment. 

"Nothin'," said Bill, "and you get on with them 
stretchers — only four Fritzies sat round a table, yellow 
as 'ell and still playin' cards — now you fall on them 
stretchers or I'll fall on you. ..." 

"What? Where?" said Archy in an ecstasy of 
curiosity, but he was ruthlessly shut up, protesting 
and struggling, in the next room to sort his stretchers, 
and Bill had his revenge. 

He now bustled about, rubbing his hands and pre- 
paring for the night's work. "Chatham," said he, 
"see after Sandy's equipment and put him in the car 
comfortable, it'll be starting soon." Chatham nodded. 
We never knew whether he heard or divined his or- 
ders, but he always carried them out. 

Sandy's companion, who had not been wounded, 
looked dumbly at Bill. What was to become of him? 
Evidently he was not going to be allowed to accom- 

36 



FESTUBERT 



pany his friend. Was he to go back to those trenches 
at once ? He did not speak, but this must have passed 
through his mind. Bill went up to him. "You — Fll 
speak to the officer about you. You'd better sleep here 
the night and you'll be fit as a flea in the morning. 
Give you a stretcher and blankets and you'll get a good 
night's rest." 

Chatham, finding himself at my side, made one of 
his low-voiced comments: "It's very hard on these 
boys — they're new to the game — what? — yes, look at 
him — ^he's a mere child; of course he'd give his stars 
for a wound. ..." After which he went up to 
Sandy and began helping him with his equipment. 

About two hours later, in the gathering dusk, a little 
party of us prepared to start for night duty at Festu- 
bert. We fell in on the road in front of the garden. 
There was a scent of hay and roses in the air. Bill 
called the roll and reminded me again not to forget 
to bring back the water-bottles and have a look at the 
sewing-machine. I promised to do so, and we went 
forward up the road, following a working party of 
pioneers who were going up to the trenches for the 
night. We took with us two stretchers and a pair of 
wheels. 

Several small houses stood along the road and flow- 
ers survived in their gardens. In one of these houses 
a woman stood half in and half out of her door and 
watched us as we passed. Some clothes hung out to 

37 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

^mmmmmmimmmmmtmmmmmimmmmmmmfmmatmim^mi^mi mm m mm ■ m i ■i n — — ■— l uj iiii n iii n « n a m i m -m^j^ iiiiiii n i— 

dry near her house. She took in washing for soldiers 
and often had her Httle kitchen quite filled with clean 
clothes hanging from the ceiling. Two days before, 
this admirable woman had been busy ironing when 
shells came over. They came every five minutes and 
fell in a direct line for her house, each one nearer than 
the last. When she considered they had approached 
too near, she placed her irons on the stove and re- 
tired to a neighboring kitchen at some distance down 
the road. The last shell knocked some tiles off the 
roof of her house. She waited for a while and then 
returned to her irons, which were still keeping hot 
on the stove, and continued her work. That was two 
days ago. Now she stood half in and half out of her 
door and watched us as we passed. First the men 
with picks and shovels, then the men with stretchers 
and surgical haversacks. A silent procession. 

We soon passed the houses, and as we proceeded 
the shell holes increased in number, some of them 
forming small ponds. When we arrived at a certain 
corner where the road forked, we halted for a while. 
This place was the outpost of inhabited country. 

The working party took the road to the right, we 
went to the left. Our road had a notice-board over 
it — Unsafe for troops in daylight. We went forward 
in single file, and every man kept well in to the side of 
the road without having to be told to do so. Every 
one was silent at first. When a star shell went up 
beyond the trees we halted, for the sniper has cats' 

38 



FESTUBERT 



eyes. Occasionally bullets went through the leaves 
of the willows over our heads with a noise of violin 
strings. At a bend in the road a pump stood, without 
a handle. We hurried past it. Pumps are often 
marked points for snipers, and here a man had met 
his death. Near by the aspen leaves shivered coldly : 
then their shadows began to move and chased other 
shadows over the earth. A star shell was going up. 
We halted. I looked back to see who was nearest 
the pump. Whoever he was, he was crouching down 
very wisely in the long grass beside the road. The 
shadows began to run back again to their rightful 
owners. Darkness — and we started again. 

Even without adventures the little journey always 
ended very joyfully in the dug-out at Festubert. It 
was a comfortable place lined with old barrels, each 
barrel filled with earth. With the sacking let down 
over the door and with two candles burning, the 
place became a home. A mysterious land waited for 
us outside, but inside all was ease, conversation, prep- 
arations for sleep. The beady eyes of a rat peeped at 
us from behind one of the barrels ; the shadows flick- 
ered on the walls. 

Tim and Jack, two Irish boys, were with me, and 
the place as I recall it is much colored by their con- 
versation. They were both idle by nature, but they 
were without the common sensations of fear. Wher- 
ever they were, they could always be found whisper- 
ing and protesting together. 



39 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"Saargeant," said Tim, "d'ye know what the Jocks 
say when a shell comes over?" 

"I do not." 

"They swallow their tay quick and say, There's 
another of yer whures of Babylon/ " 

"Saargeant — d'ye know what the Micks say when 
a shell comes over?" 

"I do not." 

"They all take a peep over the parapet and say, 
There's another bastard, be Jaysus.' " 

"Saargeant," said Jack, "they say the Micks are on 
the right of us now at Givenchy. They're a fine 
regiment, be Jee. I only wish I'd been a bit taller and 
I'd been wid them. They say they all got wild the 
other day wid nothin' doin' and went over to Fritz 
without their officers and murdered the front line of 
'em and come back again, and they hadr tb send a 
bloody big officer wid a gold cap all the way from 
London to pacify them, they were that wild." 

"Saargeant," said Tim, "d'yer see that wire mat- 
tress in the corner. Ye'll be a brave man to sleep on 
that all night, for I can hear the lice doin' physical 
exercises upon it." 

At this the pair became convulsed with giggles. 
They repeated the witticism several times, broke off 
to listen to the knocking of the bullets outside, then 
fell to giggling again. 

While one of us kept watch, the others slept. I 
drew out my pipe, a recent one from England, and 

40 



FESTUBERT 



examined it carefully. Outside the knock, knocking 
of bullets on broken rafters continued monotonously. 
I admired the shape of my pipe and conceived how 
exquisitely it would brown in a few weeks. I filled 
it leisurely. 

A step approached. One of our officers pulled 
aside the sacking and looked in. He blinked a little 
in the candle-light. 

"All right in here?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Everything's quiet to-night — ^you'll not have much 
to do. Any cases that come, send them straight to the 
dressing-station. And if you send a messenger, send 
two together, it's safer about these roads. Good- 
night." 

"Good-night, sir." 

I smoked my pipe and thought: "Now he is going 
down the road we came up, and he may get to a little 
dinner by eight o'clock or he may not. He is a good, 
straight young fellow, little more than a medical stu- 
dent. . . . When did he join us? Right at the be- 
ginning of things. And he's been trying to grow a 
moustache ever since. . . . 

"Seems to think a bit, too — ^thinks about us. And 
didn't he once stick up a picture on the walls of his 
billet — of the Kaiser turning away from Christ on 
the Cross, and asked me what I thought of it. Asked 
my opinion as one young man to another because he 
wanted to know, not for something to say. I like 



41 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

r .i.,—^ I I 11 . 11 — m i 

him for that. What odd things one remembers ! . . . 

"Of course, if a medical can survive the priestcraft 
of his profession added to the autocratic training of 
the temporary commission, he is a man indeed. But 
what a disappointment many of them have been. Once 
objects of our admiration. Young soldier doctors, 
masters of the one indispensable profession, schooled 
in a hard school, used to the aspect of suffering, 
worthy through their knowledge to exercise real 
authority. . . . Not the truth. . . . 

"Or damned medical militarists, without imagina- 
tion, with natural sympathies eliminated, patronizing 
their patients, despising the men under them as non- 
combatants.. . . Again not the truth. 

"But, by Jove, don't they rely on their profession — 
in whatever situation? . . . Yet what a profession! 
The one which alone amid the chaos of others con- 
tinues to develop, and consistently for good, alone in 
Europe. What a fabric, yet what a conspiracy, what 
capacity for inspiration, for cruelty, for service, for 
tyranny, it engenders! . . . And at what a height, 
when all is said, the level of humanity stands in it !" 

After two hours I waked Tim and told him to watch 
while I slept, but presently I was wide awake again 
at the sound of a step outside. 

"Is this Festubert dressing-station?" said a voice. 

"Yes." 

"We have a stretcher case at the top of Willow 
Poad." 

42 



FESTUBERT 



"Then we can take the wheels." 

Jack and Tim came out sleepily and we followed 
the messenger, who talked loudly, whistled and lit a 
cigarette. 

"It's only to show off before us R.A.M.C. men," 
whispered Tim, and the two began whispering and 
giggling together as they trundled the wheels. 

We turned to the left and emerged from between 
hedges on to a kind of causeway that ran out to- 
wards the front. The road had once been banked up 
but was now bitten away on each side by shells, so 
that we followed only a narrow zigzag path. The 
flare lights of both sides went up in front of us and 
the chill noises of shells and night volleys surrounded 
us. In daytime Willow Road was not used. A com- 
munication trench ran parallel with it. Even on a 
moonless night we seemed exposed to hundreds of 
malignant eyes who watched us from behind the bleak 
stumps of willow trees and even climbed the sky to 
peer down upon us. The messenger in front con- 
tinued to whistle and to glow his cigarette in an osten- 
tatious manner. When a sniper's bullet came be- 
tween us I felt irritated at his vanity, knowing that on 
such occasions it is seldom the fool who pays for his 
own folly. 

On reaching the trench the road stopped. We 
found the patient on a stretcher taking leave of his 
friends. Three of them stood around him in their 
great-coats, while a fourth walked up and down as if 



43 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

counting the moments. The patient seemed shaken 
and would not leave go of their hands. "I'm real 
sorry to be leaving you, boys. I am indeed," and he 
began to weep. "There, stop your greeting," said 
the man who was walking up and down; "ye'U be 
all right when ye get to Glasgow, and remember us 
to Sauciehall Street." 

We did not move him from the stretcher he was 
on, but left a closed stretcher with the N.C.O. in 
charge, and placed the patient carefully on the pair 
of wheels. "I'm no for leaving you and to go among 
strangers," he moaned as we wheeled him away, feel- 
ing we were but instruments of his fate. "Good- 
night. God bless you," a voice called after him. 
We continued our way back, carefully threading the 
shell holes and stealing glances at our patient's face 
by the fitful light of the flares. We brought him 
down to Bill at the main dressing-station. An hour 
later we were back again in our dug-out in Festubert. 

We slept. 

Have you ever sat all day in the British Museum 
and contemplated those peculiar Chinese pictures that 
are painted on long rolls? You sit at a deep drawer 
and pull out one roll after another. Perhaps you are 
half way through one of them. You began at the be- 
ginning, and as you proceed you unroll in front of you 
and roll up behind. The little picture remains the 

44 



FESTUBERT 



same size but continually changes as you go forward. 
You have begun perhaps on a rocky path and have 
wound with it over bridges, round mountains, through 
deep woods and emerged upon the shore of a lake. 
Plains, hills, rivers, storms of driving rain, night and 
its stars, little villages, armed hordes, boats and ships 
sailing in the sun, you have passed by in this manner. 
Suddenly, without any reason, the roll comes to an 
end. There is a little square of writing in the corner 
which doubtless, if it could be read, would explain a 
great deal. But you cannot read the mystery. You 
hold the roll in your hand a moment, then drop it into 
the deep drawer and pull out another. 
Such is active service. 

When I came to myself out of a gulf of sleep and 
went out of the dug-out into the street of Festubert, 
I knew that another quite different roll had begun to 
unfold. The ground was the same we had trod the 
night before, but all else had changed. 

It was half -past four in the morning and an early 
light of considerable beauty prevailed. There was 
light without shadow. The presence of the sun could 
be felt rather than seen. There seemed no sound, 
smell, touch anywhere in consciousness; only sight. 
*Thus it might seem to be newly dead," I thought. 

The knocking of bullets had ceased. I stood on a 
little eminence and looked beyond the ruins. Every- 
where the hatred of the night was over. In the 
trenches the infantry were thinking of rum. The 



45 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

machine-gun men were cleaning their guns, the snip- 
ers had returned to their lairs to sleep. 

Silence, everywhere. 

I crossed to the ruined church and entered. A fine 
old Louis XIV bell had fallen through the tower and 
lay on a heap of brick dust. It had a very delicate 
ornamental band engraved round it. Although 
scratched and obscured, I could perceive the grace and 
vitality of the design. 

"How many tocsins have you rung in your time?" 
I thought. "Rung how many new-old ideas into 
the world which each tocsin and among them one very 
explosive and world-shaking which has, alas, now 
shaken you down from your tower." 

But it had not deserved the last insult offered to 
it by savage men. Chips had been broken from it, and 
some one had left a pick leaning against it for the 
benefit of souvenir hunters. 

I spent some time in the churchyard, in a land of 
still desolation. The place was so silent that I was 
startled by my own footsteps. The graves had been 
buried or broken by shells, but nature, with hands 
pious or indifferent, had covered them again with 
rambling roses, with larkspur, convolvulus and even- 
ing primroses. One large shell-hole was a little gar- 
den in itself. 

Then I remembered the water-bottles and returned 
to the sleepers in the dug-out. We shouldered our 
belongings and started out for the main dressing-sta- 

46 



FESTUBERT 



tion. Gaily down the same road we marched, know- 
ing the snipers were asleep. Its aspect now was 
strangely different. On each side lay vast fields of 
self -grown grain, surging against the tall hedges, and 
lifting the marguerite and the scabies higher than it- 
self. Broken farms lay isolated in the rich wilder- 
ness or half covered in the overgrowth of their own 
orchards. The swamps where the aspen grew and 
where the water- fowl flapped in the rushes, the little 
lanes leading to unknown places, the airy silence over 
all contributed to a scene that lulled and provoked the 
senses. 

A cat ran across the road in front of us. In these 
regions a daring criminal might lurk secure against all 
but his own conscience. 

We rounded the bend, we passed the pump, we 
passed the notice-board at the corner. The sprays of 
the green oats nodded to us as we went, and pres- 
ently the wild harvest seemed to mingle with cultiva- 
tion. 

We passed an inhabited house, then another. The 
sun's early rays came through the forks of the trees 
and sent our shadows before us. A man in a blue 
cap was already at w^ork in a field behind one of the 
houses. 

"Look at the Frenchy, be Jee," said Tim. 

"He's home on leave from the front," said Jack ; "he 
came two days ago." 



47 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"The devil! And that's the way he spends his 
leave." 

"Thus do the French own their own soil," I thought. 

"Breakfast, boys !" said Tim as we reached the gate 
of the dressing-station. 

"Damn! IVe forgotten to look at that sewing-ma- 
chine." 

But the next few hours were only an interval in 
a journey. The road and the harvest land claimed 
us that day. The detachment were returning to camp 
and we continued down the road, leaving Festubert 
further and further behind. Rain fell at first. We 
plodded through the mud with out water-proof sheets 
flung over shoulders and pack. Once I looked up, and 
we were passing through Bethune. The rain dripped 
heavily from the avenue trees down on to the sand- 
bags that protected basement windows. When I 
looked up again Bethune was behind us, the road was 
dry and white again and wound uphill past a tower. 
My faculties returned. The harvest again surrounded 
us. It was wet and shining, unfolding gradually be- 
fore us and growing wider and vaster. We came 
abreast of the tower and passed it. Our road led us 
on through a sea of corn to a distant prospect of 
trees, standing far off like a green shore. At great 
intervals we saw a group of women wearing handker- 
chiefs on their heads. They swayed their bodies with 
the movement of the sickle or bent over the sheaves. 

48 



FESTUBERT 



On our left a reaper drove his machine slowly down 
the flank of a long crop and we had lost sight of his 
head before he came to the turn. Here the corn stood 
over us, and looking into it we could see the submerged 
blue of cornflowers. The harvest was so great and 
the laborers so few we said the half would be wasted. 
But further on the tide had ebbed and la}- sheaved in 
neat piles as though by unseen hands. Then again 
the waving billows swished in our ears and from the 
corner of my eye I perceived a large poppy standing, 
arterial red, above the gold. Here was as much mys- 
tery, as much beauty, as hung over that early morning 
wilderness where our journey had begun. 

Onward through the golden sea we went, and still 
onward. 

Then a halt was called. 

We sat in a row, luxuriously in the long soft grass 
at the side of the road. One man sat in the ditch op- 
posite, chewing a piece of grass. I stood on a little 
bank and looked over the heads of the others. 

"France, was this France. The name that had stood 
for a kingdom in the mind. And this was her form, 
her outward semblance, that had inspired so many 
painters, that stood a shining plain behind the minds 
of her great writers. And now she comforted us. 

Strange that she should suddenly reveal herself 
thus. France, that 'Hde^ des idees who now granted a 
handfuls of Britons the most elemental of all com- 
forts — the breath and beauty of her soil." 



49 



FIELDS AN D BATTLEFIELDS 

Turning, I spied over a low hedge a young woman 
with a baby seated in the center of a large field. 
Around her far and wide the corn was cut. She was 
resting from her toil, and with strong sleeveless arms 
she held her baby above her head and laughed in its 
face. Twice or thrice she lifted it up thus and the 
child kicked and laughed in reply. There were no 
other harvesters in sight. These two alone in the 
landscape kept up their little noonday revel. 

They seemed the spirits of the harvest, surprised in 
their benevolence, but whose labors we were not per- 
mitted to see. 

Their laughter followed us down the road. 



SO 



CHAPTER IV 

BESIDE THE CANAL 

"I love a strong and manly familiarity and conversa- 
tion: a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and 
vigor of its communication ... : it is not vigorous and 
generous enough if it be not quarrelsome, if it be civilized 
and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock." — 
Montaigne. 

ONE afternoon a detachment of twelve, who had 
been marching leisurely since noon, came to a 
halt on a lonely stretch of road opposite a small stables. 
Bill, as N.C.O. in charge of the party, still stood on his 
feet in the middle of the road, when the remainder of 
us sat down with a sigh on the bank. Bill stared at 
the place for a while and said — 

"I suppose this is it. I don't know." 

Our G.S. wagon came slowly after us along the 
road we had come. It was a warm afternoon in 
late August, the horse sweated and the wheels creaked 
on the gravel road. The A.S.C. driver drew up in a 
half-hearted way before reaching us. 

"Anyway there's the canal," said Bill, sitting down 
beside me. 

A butterfly came towards us across the stubble 

51 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

fields. The landscape shimmered in the heat. We sat 
very comfortably on the bank, hoping the problem 
would never be solved, and that we should sit there 
for ever. 

Our G.S. wagon was laden with tubs and with a 
portable copper for heating water, also with as many 
canvas buckets as Bill and I had been able to collect 
from various quarters. We were here for the pur- 
pose of establishing and running small brigade baths. 

That morning in camp Sergeant-Major Jack himself, 
burnished to the last button and glinting in the sun, 
had stood before me with an air of command. He 
was making his rounds and I had run against him. "It 
will be your duty," he said, "to provide the water 
supply. It will be a nice job. The Colonel will visit 
the place in a day or two, and you start in half an 
hour." 

Bill got up restlessly and looked down the road. 

"Here's Sammy," he said. Our officer was ap- 
proaching with a key in his hand. He said nothing but 
tried the key in the door. It fitted, and he went in 
followed by Bill. How annoying — now the problem 
was solved and we should soon have to unload the 
G.S. wagon and do all sorts of fatiguing things. 

As our life had for a long time past consisted in 
moving at frequent intervals from one spot to another, 
we had long since become expert at judging the per- 
sonality of resting-places. Some were at once exas- 
perating and some at once friendly. Some were in- 

52 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



different at first and revealed their advantages by 
degrees. Some were treacherous, with an air of hospi- 
tality giving way to bleakness and melancholy on fur- 
ther acquaintance. Some, on the other hand, appeared 
to console, to do their best for us at every turn. What 
would this be like, I wondered, gazing at the bit of a 
building covered by a single tiled roof, and at the Httle 
pent-house beside it. 

We were not long in deciding. 

The place appeared inviting. It was shaded by 
the tall poplar trees that grew along the banks of the 
canal. Even as we labored at unloading, a cool breeze 
sprang up and rustled the leaves above us. The un- 
packing appeared to be complete in no time, the 
cheese and the bacon stored in a dry spot, and sleeping- 
room found satisfactorily for every one. The cook's 
fire lit at once, and, with no recollection of fatigue, we 
were presently all sitting with a mess-tin of hot, sweet 
tea between our legs. 

After tea some of us went to the nearest farm and 
returned with news of eggs for breakfast in unlimited 
numbers. Others explored the neighboring estamin- 
ets. 

One by one, as the dusk advanced, the men climbed 
the ladder to the loft under the roof and lit a candle 
to write, or turned in between their blankets. 

"This was a fine place," they said. 

Next morning our officer was in a good temper, and 
after breakfast great sanitary and engineering schemes 



53 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

were begun. The stables were washed, scoured and 
whitewashed; and afterwards the tubs were set out 
on the clean brick floors. 

The embankment of the canal rose above the level 
of the surrounding country. A dry ditch ran at the 
foot of the embankment and the stables backed on to 
the ditch. This ditch was evidently designed by Provi- 
dence to take the waste water from the baths. 

At that time small filter beds were le dernier cri 
in sanitary circles and we determined not to be be- 
hind the times. The ditch had no fall in one direction 
more than in another. We therefore formed a large 
settling pool in the ditch by means of two mud dams 
twelve foot apart, and when the waste water col- 
lected in it above a certain height, sluiced it out over 
two roughly- formed filter beds, one at each end. By 
this means we conceived ourselves as maintaining the 
high standard of sanitation of the British Army in 
the field. 

The next problem was the water supply. Some 
kind of an aqueduct was obviously required to convey 
water from the canal across the embankment and 
over the ditch to the stables. 

My eye had already observed that the stables-roof 
possessed an eaves gutter. '^Improvisation/' I mur- 
mured. A word that covers a multitude of sins. 

When at the Day of Judgment I stand before the 
throne and the recording angel comes to the first three 
year? of the great war, I have no doubt I shall then 

54 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



find myself by a process of moral selection in the com- 
pany of Peter G., Corporal Macktavish, Private De- 
cies, Sergeant B, of the 29th and many other amateur 
sanitary scientists of the 9th Division. And when the 
celestial sergeant-major, with a pair of crossed cherubs 
on his sleeve and a long list of crimes in his hand, 
asks us, "what the angel" weVe got to say for our- 
selves, we shall reply with one voice '^Improvisation." 

And if the magic of that word fails in heavenly 
circles and "escort, accused and evidence" are marched 
forthwith to the infernal incinerators, we shall at least 
have the comfort of finding the cooks have arrived 
there before us ; and see them swimming about in the 
grease pits they would never take the trouble to use 
properly in a previous existence. 

That eaves gutter was removed from the roof and 
was placed on wooden stays across the ditch, the lower 
end in close proximity to Joe and his boiler. The 
upper end communicated with a small trench cut 
across the top of the canal embankment about six 
inches deep. But the gravel tow-path, eight foot in 
width, formed a barrier. How was that to be crossed ? 
Improvisation again! The iron rain-water pipe that 
had once communicated with the eaves gutter was 
made to communicate with it once more, but this time 
in a horizontal fashion rather than a perpendicular. 
The pipe was buried across the tow-path and covered 
with a stout board to protect it from the wheels of 
vehicles. One end formed a funnel mouth over the 



55 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

canal, the other end gave -into the trench. The aque- 
duct was thus complete. One man with a bucket on 
the canal bank could now do as much work as the 
whole detachment running backwards and forwards. 

On trial, however, the water flowed unevenly and 
scoured out too much earth from the trench. This 
was remedied by widening the trench into a small basin 
at the lower end and putting a grid at intervals along it. 

When the Colonel arrived he inspected the work, 
outwardly stern and critical, but inwardly benevolent. 

"To-morrow," said he, "two companies of Highland- 
ers are coming for good warm baths. Have you 
plenty of soap?" 

"Yes, sir," said Bill. 

"May I see all this at work," he said, indicating the 
water supply. This command, couched as a request, 
was a terrible incentive. How we prayed that all 
might go well. The weak part of the system was the 
human being with the bucket at the canal side, whose 
duty it was to dip and pour into the funnel as steadily 
and rapidly as possible. At that moment I dreamed 
wildly of constructing a Persian water-wheel out of 
jam tins, but at present the human was the only ma- 
chine possible. If he became lost in thought, or if an 
interesting barge passed by, the water supply might 
fail. I selected a steady, reliable man, and he went 
to work with a canvas bucket. His labors were not 
visible from where the Colonel stood down by the 
stables. We waited breathlessly. Presently we heard 

S6 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



a little swirling noise and the water dashed out of the 
spout on to the gutter and flowed thence over the ditch 
to Joe, who filled his buckets as fast as he could empty 
them into his boiler. 

We watched for a moment or two. Proud mo- 
ments long to be remembered. The Colonel remained 
grave, but we knew he was greatly impressed. He 
never failed to be impressed by the simplest mechanical 
contrivance, deeming it little less than miraculous. 

A short amiable conversation followed, and as a 
mark of high approbation he granted Bill and myself 
each a pipeful of Maghalesberg tobacco out of the 
small canvas bag he always carried with him. 

Colonels, bishops, judges and admirals can do such 
things without incurring loss of dignity. 

Then he rode away gallantly on his horse. 

During meal-times we paid much attention to the 
barges, as they passed. They came up between the 
poplar trees and crossed our field of vision, majestic- 
ally and with incredible slowness. Sometimes a large 
Red Cross barge painted gray would pass pulled by 
one steam tug in front, and pushed by another behind, 
while a hospital nurse oflf duty reclined in a canvas 
chair on deck. 

The canal narrowed to a bottle neck at a swing 
bridge, which occurred every mile or so. When a 
Red Cross barge came to one of the bridges all the 
children of the neighborhood rushed shrieking to the 
bridge and began swinging from it, kicking it and 



57 



FIEL DS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

working handles until it lifted clear; after which they 
all hung over the rails and abutments in order to look 
on deck. Then if the hatches were open you could 
catch a glimpse within of a neat row of beds with 
hospital charts hung over them, of bandaged heads on 
the pillows, of a brilliantly polished sterilizer on a 
table. 

But for ourselves, we were more attracted by the 
ordinary black barge following its couple of stiff 
horses at the end of a long tow-rope. A dark-haired, 
kerchiefed woman stood at the tiller as a rule, and a 
family of children fell up and down the companion 
ladder. A little boat trailed behind beside the huge 
rudder. We shouted to each family and asked them 
for their little boat pour souvenir, and they shouted 
gaily to us in return. But they seemed unwilling to 
grant our request. Every barge had its brasses pol- 
ished to perfection, and in many of them two bay trees 
grew in tubs immediately in front of the companion 
hatch, and a small brightly-painted barrel was placed 
between them. 

We told each other that that barrel contained rum. 

"Apres la guerre," said Bill, "I shall have a barge on 
this canal with one of them little rum-barrels and a 
couple of good English 'orses and treat 'em well. Yes, 
my boy, that's the life for me." 
"And me," I said. 

One fresh fine morning we stood in our breakfast 
place in a recess of the tow-path, having nearly com- 

58 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



pleted a very excellent breakfast. The sun flashed on 
the water of the canal and shone dull gold on the stub- 
ble lands beyond. Bill, well lined and smoking his 
pipe, was more than ever at the mercy of the better 
part of his nature, and I was finishing a mug of 
real sergeant-major tea, hot, sweet and strong, but not 
tasting of yesterday's stew. The wood fire still 
smouldered between us. 

A pair of horses passed behind us along the tow- 
path and a long rope followed them. We knew that 
before long a barge would make its deliberate appear- 
ance. 

"There's some cooks," said Joe, "who take all the 
heart out of a good bit of bacon. Now Alf had it 
just right this morning. ..." 

But instead of continuing this interesting topic we 
all turned and stared at a figure who appeared on the 
tow-path. He was an old hunched Frenchman carry- 
ing a whip and moving forward very slowly. 

"Bong jour," we all cried in chorus, for we felt so 
happy that morning. 

The bargee smiled and nodded. 

"Damn it," said Bill, "give 'im some tea," and one 
of us quickly dipped a mug in the dixy and stepped 
forward, while Bill, hands in pockets, beamed on him 
equally with the sun. 

He received the mug with profuse expressions of 
gratitude yet with the dignity of an old aristocrat. 
He smiled and drank. "Enchante," I murmured. 



59 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

He waved the mug and drank again. 

"That's a drop of good tay anglay youVe got there," 
said Bill in a loud voice as though the Frenchman 
was deaf. "Tay anglay — ^bong. Tay frangais no 
bloody bong." But Bill stopped, open-mouthed, for 
the Frenchman bowed to him. We laughed. He 
handed back the mug, turned and acknowledged us 
all with a look of complaisance, inclined his head to 
Bill a second time, and passed along the tow-path. 

Then the barge at the other end of the rope began 
to pass by. 

"Seems a good old joker," said Joe. 

"From what I can see of them," said Bill, "these 
Frenchies are a good sort — some of 'em. I was havin' 
a conversation with that old farmer chap who has that 
bit of an estaminet up by the bridge, last night." 

"What about, Bill?" 

"Well he told me as how he'd 'ad three wives." 

"Could he speak English ?" 

"No more than what I can speak French." 

"What else did he tell you?" 

Bill took his pipe out of his mouth and spoke grave- 
ly and shyly. 

"He said he'd 'ad no children by the first two wives, 
but it seems he's had two by the last. He were a right 
good sort, Bags. You know. Like me and you. He 
'ad a bad pain all day yesterday from what I could 
make of it, so I promised to bring him something for 
it this evenin'. You come along too, will you. You 

60 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



can speak their lingo. It's no good ; I can't speak it." 

I promised to accompany him, and we fell to dis- 
cussing a train of artillery horses that were filing 
along the opposite bank of the canal on their way to 
be watered. 

That afternoon a company of Jocks were coming 
for baths. In the morning I determined to complete 
the shower bath, previously designed out of two oil 
drums. One oil drum had been perforated at the 
bottom by Dilke, our master metal-worker, and this I 
fixed rigidly in the bath-house below the ceiling joists. 
The other drum was arranged to pull up and down by 
means of a block and tackle and tip water into the per- 
forated drum. I was arranging this carefully, and as 
I gazed at the ceiling I became aware of two scoffers 
who stood near by. 

"He's always got some wee dodge," said the first. 

"What's he up to now?" said the second. 

"A shower bath," I said severely ; "you've not heard 
of them in Scotland yet ?" 

"Naw," said the first, "explain. By Chrise, he's a 
learned Wully." 

"A shower bath is a frisson" I began. 

"Yer right there— it's that— we have them at hame 
—and if them drums come down on a naked man he'll 
be fricaseed right enough." 

"They'll not come down," I said hotly; "and if 
you've nothing to do, allow me to find you some- 
thing. . . . Fill this with water— take these two 

6i 



FIELDS AND BATTL EFIELDS 

buckets." The two scoffers worked well, though 
tongues wagged and terrible results were prophesied, 
and by the midday meal the shower bath was com- 
plete. 

The Jocks arrived in good spirits. They were in 
charge of a very young subaltern who walked in a 
lonely way up and down the tow-path while they were 
at their orgies, or stood still and watched them rather 
enviously. 

"Undress in 'ere," said Bill, entering the pent-house, 
followed by the N.C.O. in charge of the bathing party, 
followed by the party itself, and his voice emerged 
somewhat stifled. . . . "Undress in 'ere and pro- 
ceed with your towels into the bath-house. There's 
eight tubs and two to share a tub — that's sixteen at a 
time. Soap provided but not clean shirts after." 

When they had undressed they ran out of one door 
and into another shouting and waving their towels. 
The water supply worked well, and ran merrily over 
its aqueduct to the bucket-fillers, who were ceaselessly 
at work emptying and refilling the tubs. Joe kept his 
boilers hissing and bubbling and dispensed one bucket 
of boiling water to each tub. 

Another man of our staff had a large yard-brush 
with which he strode up and down the brick floor of 
the bath-house urging the rising tide of soapy water 
towards its outlet and cracking jokes with the bathers. 
He was the sardonic individual who had scoffed at, and 
labored upon, my shower bath in the morning — a 

62 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



Scot himself and pleased now to be in the naked com- 
pany of brither Scots. "He'll discover a relation here 
or Fm much mistaken," I thought. 

Before half an hour had elapsed he discovered an- 
other man from Ecclefechan who turned out to be 
the third cousin of his mother, sitting in the end tub 
on the right, and the two became lost in a loud dis- 
cussion on family affairs. The cousin sat on the edge 
of his tub scrubbing his chest in a leisurely manner, 
and Macdavies stood over him with his yard-brush, 
both far away in Ecclefechan, while the tide of soapy 
water rose higher and higher over the floor. 

"Get on with it. Mack," I cried to him at length. 

"Here's ma cousin," he called back in an injured 
tone. 

The sun shone in upon the bathers through the 
steam. Their pink bodies ran up and down splashing 
the white-washed walls to the ceiling. Two came 
clasping each other round the neck for a shower bath. 
I pulled the rope and a cascade of bright drops fell 
upon them. They shrieked and danced. Others 
rushed up. The shower bath was filled and emptied 
several times ; and some of the bathers ran to the canal 
to have a swim. Our men continued to run back and 
forth with canvas buckets, while Bill smoked his pipe, 
shouted to every one, and busily entered numbers in a 
note-book. 

When all was over the bathing-party fell in on the 
road and marched back in high good humor to their 



63 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

tea, with moist towels thrown round their necks. 

That evening I strolled with Bill along the tow- 
path under the trees in the direction of the bridge. We 
were on our way to visit his friend. On our left 
beyond the canal lay a broad expanse of country di- 
vided by hedge and fence. On our right an aged man 
and his wife were engaged in the difficult task of mow- 
ing a second crop of hay in a meadow near the canal 
which had been wired over as a barbed wire entangle- 
ment. They had been" patiently at work now for sev- 
eral days, standing between the strands and stakes and 
slowly loading the precious hay on to an old wagon 
resembling a Noah's Ark, which was dragged by a 
cow. The cow grazed peacefully for hours while the 
wagon was being piled. 

Over this pastoral the baby swallows had been play- 
ing, strengthening their young wings for autumn 
flight, but now they had gathered in the air in a little 
cloud and gone off to their nests. 

Bill had a couple of Dover's Powder Tablets in his 
pocket. "O' course, you can do the talkin' this time," 
he said, "but I think you'll like the old chap, he's a 
jolly old stick." 

'T don't want to talk," I said. 

A little low house stood upon the tow-path with 
Estaminet written in dingy letters over the door. The 
place was obviously for the refreshment and enter- 
tainment of bargees, and included a small farm, situ- 
ated behind the house. 

64 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



We pushed the door open and entered. 

Within were a number of the most commonplace 
objects, a small bar in the corner, a stove, a bench, 
and a few grimy chairs. On the walls hung a colored 
print of the Virgin and Child, and a framed advertise- 
ment of Banyul Bartissol. The windows were dirty 
and the place was without comfort, dark and poverty- 
stricken. 

"Why have we come here?" I thought. 

Two women sat by the stove quite quietly. They 
stared stupidly at us as we entered. One held a child 
on her knee and wore a shawl. 

A little clatter came from the corner where an older 
woman stood behind the bar arranging glasses. She 
turned and nodded to Bill. 

"I suppose he 'aint come in yet," said Bill to me at 
the door; "from what I can make out that's his wife." 

She came forward from behind the bar and offered 
us beer. 

"Beer for me," said Bill. I asked for coffee. 

"Vous aimez de caffoy," she said in a harsh voice, 
and reached for the coffee mill. She ground some of 
the black beans and added them to the pot on the 
stove. 

"How's Mister?" said Bill. 

"II va mieux," replied the woman. 

"I've got summat for him," said Bill, nodding wise- 
ly. Then we both sat down on chairs and stretched 
our legs out to the stove. 



6s 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



We sat smoking in silence, and when the old man 
entered with the soil on his boots he nodded to us in 
a friendly way, but the silence of the room remained 
unbroken. I saw at once why Bill had taken to him. 
He was a fine old man, still upright under his years. 
His face was lined and furrowed and of a color re- 
sembling his suit of corduroys. It expressed infinite 
patience but without the beaten look ; moreover, it was 
familiar among human faces as the oak is familar in 
a landscape, and had something reassuring about it. 

He wore an old ring on his finger. As he moved 
slowly across the floor, the room appeared less sordid, 
less poverty-stricken. The two women sitting to- 
gether addressed to him a few remarks. The older 
woman poked the stove and motioned us to draw 
closer round it. She handed to me the bowl of coffee 
and milk she had prepared. 

The old man after wandering round the room drew 
up beside Bill's chair and began describing his illness 
of yesterday, occasionally looking across to me for 
help in an explanation. He had very blue, guileless 
eyes, expressing at the moment concern and sorrow 
over the symptoms he rehearsed for us. But Bill, 
smoking and looking grave, understood nearly as much 
of his patois as I did. 

Bill said, "Seems like rheumatics or summat; I 
reckon it's the damp got into your bones. I got like 
that myself — seems like a chill on the stomach, don't 
it. Now when you feel it come on again you take 

66 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



these." Here Bill took out the Dover's Powders, and 
at once every one was interested and began to talk. 
The old man handed the tablets round and thanked us 
gravely. Then once more silence fell. 

We smoked quietly for a while. 

"There's something wrong with that child," said 
Bill to me at length. "Piccannin malade ?" he inquired 
sympathetically. The woman with the shawl moved 
and showed us the child's white, immobile face and 
fixed eyes. But though she looked hopefully at Bill 
she said nothing. 

"Looks to me paralyzed," said Bill. 

"Is its father at the war?" I inquired, but the wo- 
man with the shawl shook her head. 

"They don't know who its father is," said Bill. 

The lamp was now lit and the light fell upon the 
little circle of us, on the aproned knees of the women, 
on the noble face of the old man. The sick child 
stared fixedly at the flame. 

"Vous beaucoup piccanin ?" said the older woman to 
Bill. 

"Me kat piccannin," said Bill, holding up four 
fingers. "That's to say I 'ad kat, but they're dead 
now. . . . Bags, explain to 'em, will you?" 

I hesitated. "Les enfants de Monsieur sont 
morts. ..." 

But Bill broke in. "I 'ad four extrsLordinary fine 
uns. They're dead now, so I don't like to think on 'em ; 
but they were that extraordinary fine and fat. I had 



67 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

them took naked and they was all the same, no wrist 
nor ankle, only one wrinkle. But I can't abear to 
think on 'em." 

Then the woman with the shawl spoke, and as she 
did so rocked the child gently in her arms. She spoke 
in patois and was evidently trying to explain what 
was the matter with the child. The woman beside 
her joined in and seemed to prompt her, but she did 
not look at us as she spoke. I could hardly follow 
what they said, and turned inquiringly to Bill. *Tt had 
a fall or something," said he; "one of mine began 
that way. Oh, it makes you feel right bad inside to 
see them suffering, and they can't tell you what's 
wrong." 

"How much does it weigh ?" I asked. 

"Weigh !" said Bill fiercely, "I don't hold with this 
weighing week in week out. One week perhaps the 
child won't weigh what it aughter and then the par- 
ents get fretting and send for the doctor, and he says 
there ain't nothing wrong but they will 'ave it there is, 
never mJnd what nobody says. . . . It's a wonder 
some kids grow up at all." 

At this the old man got up and began wandering 
about the room again. He spoke and gesticulated, 
pointing several times over his shoulder with his clay 
pipe. I listened and watched for the least expression 
on his features ; his eyes were in shadow. "Puis se 
vont en guerre," he repeated several times. I caught 
his meaning at last. 

68 



BESIDE THE CANAL 



"What's he say?" said Bill. 

"When they do grow up they go to the wars. He 
savs he hasn't heard from his son since September 

1914." 

"My last died a few months since," said Bill. "I 
got leave from the division to go and see the missus, 
but I didn't see the child alive." 

The old man was still walking aimlessly about the 
room, putting his gnarled fingers into his pipe. "Puis 
se vont en guerre," he repeated. 

Bill became lost in thought. The old man sat down 
and then got up again. He quietly took away Bill's 
glass and filled it for him, replacing it at his elbow. 

One of the women coughed. 

"They say they have a child up in the front line 
fomewhere," I said, "and that it goes over to Fritz 
and comes back again. They entice it over. They 
say a sergeant found it in Ypres, but I don't hardly 
believe it." 

Bill continued to stare at the stove. 

"How many barges pass in a day now ?" I asked the 
old man. 

"Peut-etre cinq," he replied, holding up the fingers 
of one hand. 

"And how many avant la guerre ?" I asked. 

"Peut-etre vingt," he replied — "vingt," and held up 
both hands twice. 

At parting we were not allowed to pay for our 

69 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

drinks but were treated as guests. As we returned by 
the tow-path through the dark, Bill, who had raised 
his glass to his ancient friend, turned to me and said, 
"Well, I quite enjoyed that evening. Bags, didn't you? 
You can see he's a good old stick, can't you — a proper 
good old man. And he knows summat." 

"Yes," I said, "but I think old people are difficult to 
understand." 



70 



CHAPTER V 



"He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear 
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear: 
And you all know security- 
Is mortals* chiefest enemy." 

Macbeth. 

ON the evening of September 24, 191 5, a little 
group of R.A.M.C. orderlies left behind them the 
last houses of the mining village and prepared to cross 
the wide fields that lay beyond. At certain points they 
stopped, and one man of the group would bend down 
and stick a little notice-board into the ground. The no- 
tice-boards had a directing arrow upon them, and bore 
the significant words. Walking Wounded. They were 
placed at cross paths and at other points where direc- 
tions were uncertain. These men were marking a 
route. Their strange mission drew from them no 
comment, provoked no forebodings: they had been 
well trained. But on reaching the open, so fine a 
prospect faced them that one and all paused in ad- 
miration. 

Before them was the wide French plain in the ebb 
of daylight. In the west the sun had built himself an 

71 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



angry palace of smouldering cloud and from within 
seemed to strive against his setting. 

In the east a perfect rainbow shone clear, striding 
the world. Betv/een these two opposites the whole 
earth seemed but to minister to the skies. 

On our left a pyramid of slag of great size tapered 
upwards, yet it served only to give such scale to the 
scene as the human figure gives to a cathedral. The 
plain with its distant towers and spires vanished into 
mystery and insignificance. A great high-road with 
its avenue of feathery trees ran forward to challenge 
the horizon, but in its turn vanished also. The eye 
would not follow it beyond the first cloud bars above 
it. The sky claimed all. It seemed as if those familiar 
phenomena that mask unknown powers were about 
to speak. The imagery of Nature was stressed. There 
are moments when the supernatural has short but com- 
plete sway over all. In the west the sun was pos- 
sessed of devils. Cloud-shapes and smoke added to 
his torture and magnificence. In the east, over the 
silent battle-lines, so calm a gateway shone that the 
rainbow and its message of peace occurred simultane- 
ously to the eyes and minds of all of Us. 

Countless aeroplanes with wing:5 twice lit passed in 
and out of this gateway from sunlight to starlight and 
back again. Indifferent grey clouds had their place in 
corners, and every v/here aloft forms of all'COitceivable 
emotions laughed, crouched and wept. 

The guns which had thundered for days wexe silent, 

72 



WALPURGIS* DANCE 



a strange quiet hung on earth, but the sky instead was 
a battlefield. The secret of so much stood half-re- 
vealed that it was no wonder we remained spellbound. 
We knew a battle would be fought on the morrow. 
We dared not guess the result. But here, perhaps, the 
result was already decided. The aspirations and lusts 
of dead generations were here. Here the crimes of 
nations. Here long- forgotten seeds brought to har- 
vest, age-long ghosts striving with ghosts, old acquies- 
cences, old follies, vanities of peoples, prophecies of 
statesmen and poets long dust, all whatsoever of the 
terrible dead that will not die, here risen and come to- 
gether for judgment. 

Very early next morning the walking wounded be- 
gan to come down the path we had marked out for 
them. They came down from the dressing-stations 
along the interminable communication trenches to a 
certain sinister cross-roads situated between Cambrin 
and Vermelles, where their brethren on stretchers lay 
waiting. At this little Mecca medical orderlies were 
loading the hurrying ambulance cars day and night. 
Both shells and rain fell at intervals, and the men on 
stretchers moaned as they waited hour after hour : for 
the ambulance cars were taxed to the uttermost. 

The walking wounded hurried on down the road to 
the mining village where women watched them pass- 
ing in twos and threes. They crossed the open fields 
beyond and came to the Bethune road where the horse 
vans and lorries waited for them under the trees. 



73 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

Here they gathered round a coffee-van or sat in rows, 
officers and men side by side, made indistinguishable 
by those same colors of the wounded. Many had 
walked four or five miles and still the tides of strong 
emotions floated them above their pain. They talked 
in groups cheerfully; but some lay exhausted on the 
ground. A few had been sent down to us in staff mo- 
tor-cars leaning back on soft cushions, and watched 
kindly by a red-capped officer who, having handed 
over his charges, returned to his car and dashed off on 
some notable errand. 

Pilgrim after pilgrim came from the dread shrine 
over the hill, contributed each his share of hope, in- 
dignation, despair, and passed on. But first he drank 
a cup of tea or Oxo. Everywhere the common ordi- 
nary things of life insisted on obtruding. Last night 
the witches had been riding, and here were the results 
of their incantations — a stew-pot of tragedy and the 
eyes of men in pain, of exaltation, blood and weari- 
ness, of the breath of gas patients, of unspeakable 
oaths, of fortitude, sacrifice, and of Oxo. 

The caravan where the Oxo was served had its 
correct furniture, with little cupboards and mirrors 
and red wooden steps. The orderly in charge called 
it a little 'ome from 'ome, but he was always hard 
at work washing and filling enamel mugs and handing 
them out to the crowd. A heavy draught horse yoked 
to one of the ambulance wagons lowered his head to 
the ground. He blew out his nostrils at the smell 

74 



WALPURGIS* DANCE 



of blood and with startled eyes regarded a thin hu- 
man, a wounded Scotch infantryman, asleep on a 
stretcher, with a dark stain on his tartan. 

The crowd of patients grew and waned and grew 
again. The slow horse-wagons rolled them down the 
avenue of trees towards Bethune. The motor-lorries 
bumped them down the same road, but always there 
were more arriving. 

Who are these cutting hideous capers? They are 
in charge of orderlies who cling to them. "More gas 
patients," said a man beside me. Resentful of earth 
and heaven these unfortunates sit, stand, lie, or walk 
restlessly hither and thither seeking relief. But they, 
too, pass. That man who wept at the wreck of his 
own limbs will pass. All will pass away down the 
straight road to death or deliverance. Time alone will 
end all this; for this is the essence of time by every 
sign and symptom. . . . 

Patients whose wounds required dressing again, or 
whose bandages had become stiff or uncomfortable, 
were taken down into a small dressing-station below 
ground where wise authority had laid a large store of 
dressings and of perchloride solution. Here Sparky 
and Chatham were hard at work, and remained so all 
day, in the semi-darkness. One of our officers worked 
with them, sharing their toil and fatigue as much as 
superintending them. 

Patients smelling of blood and of the soil crowded 
down into the den or sat round the entrance. They 



75 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

looked with frightened or weary or proud eyes at 
their wounds : they repeated their adventures again or 
grew indifferent through pain. 

Once when I emerged from this dug-out on some 
errand I saw a French child, a boy of nine or ten, who 
had wandered up the road and who now stood rooted 
to the spot, staring. He could do nothing but mur- 
mur to himself, ''Les blesses." 

"Go away, child. Your ej^es are more terrible than 
all the wars in creation. You take us seriously ! You 
have not yet learned that Time and the Witches are 
pulling strings and we but dancing to a measure. No, 
that man on a stretcher is not dead, not even seriously 
wounded. ... Go away for Christ's sake." 

For a long while he stood with eyes only for the 
nightmare before him; then mercifully a column of 
men marching past up the La Bassee road distracted 
him. 

They were a battalion of Jocks. 

"Reinforcements," said a man with a bandage round 
his head. 

"They'll need reinforcements and all, up there, be- 
fore much longer," said another patient who leant 
against a tree. 

"They're goin' in by Cambrin, I expect," said the 
first; "and God help them!" 

One of our orderlies, a Scotch boy of nineteen, was 
standing near by watching the fours as they passed. 
He was a very silent, almost inarticulate youth who 

76 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



spent his life in fits of sullen gloom or of explosive 
industry. Some one was at my elbow speaking; but 
before I turned I noticed that Rob, the orderly, 'sud- 
denly started as though he had taken a bullet. He 
took a step forward, then turned and rushed away. 
"What's the matter with Rob?" I thought. 

"Please, sir," said a humble voice beside me. 

1 found at my elbow a very small man with his arm 
in a sling. 

"That bus goes first," I said, pointing to a motor- 
lorry. "Do you want help up?" He took a step to- 
wards the motor-lorry and then turned to me again. 
He grinned and put his hand on his stomach in a de- 
precating way. I followed him. 
"What's the matter?" 

"IVe got one here that no one ain't seen yet," he 
said, and looked up at me confidingly. 

"A wound?" He nodded. "Well, let's see it 
Heavens! Why all this intrigue?" He pulled up his 
shirt and grinned shyly. There, sure enough, were 
two abdominal wounds, an exit and an entrance, which 
he had hitherto kept to himself for some extraordinary 
reason. 

^^ I scolded him well while a stretcher was brought. 
"Got any more about you? No. What d'ye think 
then— they're your wounds to do what you like with ! 
How far have you walked? Don't know! Well, now 
you're a stretcher case, see? ... And don't 'walk 
any more." 

17 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

I knew that probably the stomach walls had not 
been pierced, but it was right in such cases to provide 
for the worst, and when he had been dressed anew 
he was sent off proudly on a stretcher with a red label 
tied to his button. 

"Any more for Blighty?" said the wagon orderly, 
jumping up behind his wagon. "Bethune and Blighty 

— this way " and the old horse-ambulance rolled 

slowly off with its load of bandaged passengers lean- 
ing wearily one against another. 

I was about to cross to the cook-house when the 
orderly Rob rushed by me, in full marching order. I 
noticed that his eyes were red with weeping. He 
jumped the foot path with a fine athletic movement 
and set off up the La Bassee road at a steady double. 

I knew Rob to be a good cross-country runner, for 
he had out-distanced me on several occasions in early 
days, but never before had I seen him start so brave- 
ly and with a full kit on his back. 

"Where the hell is he off to?" I said aloud. 

"Haven't ye heard?" said Corporal Paddy, who 
had been handing cigarettes round to the groups of 
patients. "Haven't ye heard about Rob ? He saw his 
father a bit since going up into action. Ye know that 
battalion that passed up just now? Well, he saw his 
own dad in one of the fours — and never knew he was 
out in France at all. He's got leave from the captain 
to follow him, and to report at Cambrin after." 

"Will he catch him?" I asked. And we both 

78 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



watched the figure lessening on the straight road. 

"He's a fine runner," said Paddy. 

"Christ! if he stays here he may see him before 
long," said a voice behind us. But we did not turn 
round. Paddy and I stood close together and watched 
the little figure eagerly. 

Then he was a mere speck between the avenue trees. 

Then he was gone. 

Meanwhile, a cheerful noise of conversation came 
from a little group of wounded sitting near together, 
discussing and comparing. They have for the moment 
forgotten their wounds and each had already made a 
little legend of himself. Oh, vanity! Gift of the 
gods! Wherewith a man will reward himself more 
happily than at the hands of princes ! Away with your 
V.C.s, your M.M.s ; here are the true rewards without 
selfishness : the little picture each mind has made, com- 
pounded of truth and imagination, of itself, its courage 
and its achievement. 

But it is just this power of self -compensation by 
the human mind that makes a true tale of war impos- 
sible. No recording instrument is more inaccurate. 
Here are the units of armies, the instruments of na- 
tions. Far away in the capitals of Europe are those 
other units of Press and Government, the agents of 
nations. These two are divided not by space alone, 
but by changing seas of consciousness. Here are men 
returning to contribute to public opinion at home, but 

79 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

even as they go they are themselves changing, return- 
ing through various emotional states to the normal. 
Whatever their experiences, their true thoughts, have 
been, they are even now beyond a magic circle and 
cannot be truly communicated. Though but a few 
miles away from the fight they themselves are no 
longer v/hat they were : are not now what they will be. 
Hence the shroud and halo over the fields of battle. 
Hence the continual, inevitable ignorance of the truth 
of war. This divorce between agent and instrument 
is at the root of all the chief evils and witches' work 
among men. 

Often a single powerful impression has grip of a 
man's mind. Here is a man full of admiration for a 
German boy soldier, who stood alone on the parapet, 
deserted by his comrades, to receive the charge of a 
Scotch battalion. A vision rises as from the ashes of 
old camp fires. There he stands on the parapet wait- 
ing, full of wild antagonism and the spirit of battle. 
He shoots three. Our men admire, but slay him. 
He continues to live in their minds. 

Or the man comes who has followed the fight with 
true military instincts. He recalls all the passionate 
hopes, angers, regrets of the day, and eagerly inquires 
the doings of other battalions. The fierce interest of 
the game absorbs him, but his fractured arm now 
makes him glad his adventures are in retrospect. But 
a little lower down the lines in some hospital when his 
arm is set, and the pain subsided, he will recall his 

80 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



great desire for that objective, which moved him in 
the day of the fight, and he will say he wished to 
return. In England, in suitable surroundings, he will 
say with less sincerity and more emphasis that his one 
wish is to return. Also there is the man convinced by 
disaster to his own compan}^ that the whole attack is 
a failure. He may express this defiantly, or more con- 
vincingly by words dropped despite himself. Gradr 
ually a whole impression can be gathered from an ac- 
cumulation of many. The workings of that other 
Mind against us, the Enemy, can be felt meeting, par- 
rying, probing. Through many small reflections the 
protagonists can be dimly perceived, the minds of the 
opposing armies. The men, as they speak in various 
northern dialects, reveal various passions ; among them 
hatred, tossed up with others of its kind. Yet, here in 
the struggle itself. Hate is not the motive force. The 
inspiration is the spirit of conflict, the Spirit of Life 
itself. 

Life? 

Here is war: the thing itself. Standing here upon 
the fringe of the charmed circle, let us look at that 
thing. Are not hundreds of men at this moment show- 
ing those qualities recognized as the essence of life? 
The intrepidity of the mountaineer, the patience of the 
ploughman, the travail of the woman in childbirth, the 
abnegation of the hermit in his cell, the self-sacrifice 
of a lover for his beloved. 

It is true. And upon the truth of it rests a shining 



8i 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



edifice of romance and heroism which draws all eyes. 
But although it is true, it is only a half-truth. 

Are not other men at this moment suffering the pain 
that corrodes faith, the shame that drives to suicide, 
the fatigue that makes them at one with clay, the 
hatred that makes them animals? Men with self-in- 
flicted wounds, malingerers, lunatics, murderers of 
prisoners, wounded surviving against their will, cow- 
ards waiting for the court-martial. . . . 
Life! God save the mark. 

Yet this is true equally with the other. And from 
this rises nothing but a miasma that spreads over 
Europe, poisoning uncounted lives so that men must 
fix their eyes on the shining edifice of heroism as 
upon Moses's serpent lifted in the wilderness demand- 
ing their faith. So the two half-truths are inseparably 
linked together. The one is a lie without the other. 
But taken together, do they form a whole Truth — 
form substance of Man's unanswerable achievement? 
Or do they negative each other? Are they together — 
falsehood, unrighteousness, bankruptcy? 

Then rumors come from unknown sources. In the 
movement of men to and fro, in the swift passing of 
a staff motor-car, in the arrival of an ambulance full 
of stretcher cases, there seemed to come a comment. 
The Hohensollern Redoubt is ours. It does not fall to 
a lie. . . . The Germans are evacuating Lille. Is it 
right or wrong that France should belong to the 
French? . , . 



82 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



Oh, God, can this be the beginning of the end? 
May our sacrifice be not in vain. Give us victory. 
How can we not believe in the justice of our cause? 

But now it was growing dusk. Was this the first 
or second night of the battle — who can remember? 
The firing lights for batteries were being lit in the 
fields. So many little red eyes. . . . 

I felt myself again drawn towards the circle of 
speakers who were sitting round an old brazier. They 
had been wounded chiefly in the arm, hand or scalp, 
and most of them held a cigarette or mug of tea in an 
uninjured hand. 

A man was telling of a strange incident he had wit- 
nessed a few hours before. Between puffs of a cigar- 
ette, the story seemed to escape from his mouth and 
take visible shape before me — 

He and a small bombing party had returned from a 
raid and were resting in comparative safety in a shal- 
low trench. One of the party had brought in a wound- 
ed German as prisoner. The man took his prisoner 
apart, and seating him on an old firing-step, proceeded 
to dress his wounds carefully with his own field-dress- 
ing. 

"I told him he were a fool," said the speaker. "It's 
a crime to use your first field-dressing on any blighter 
—ain't it?" 

I nodded. 

"And on a blinkin' Boche and all " 

Then the prisoner complained of hunger. His 

83 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

captor gave him a biscuit and then a drink out of his 
water bottle. It seemed that the prisoner leaned back 
and expressed thanks, but next moment he looked a 
bit frightened, for a bloody look had come into the 
Englishman's face. "Now," said he, "what about the 
Liisitaniaf What about the Zeppelin raids?" 

As though beside himself he repeated his questions, 
but his prisoner only sat with a helpless, conciliating 
look, not daring to move. 

"Then strike me blind," said the speaker, "if he 
didn't half turn his head away, and dig him through 
with his bayonet, as though against his will. Then 
he started walkin' up and down past him like a loon 
and kept stopping opposite him 

"What I can't understand is dressing his wounds be- 
fore sticking him " 

The speaker ended, and spat into the brazier. He 
tried to light another cigarette with one hand, but 
failed, so I struck a match and held it for him. He 
had dried blood on his face and the yellow light gave 
it a mummy-like appearance. When the match went 
out it seemed that darkness had fallen. Other voices 
continued their interminable stories, but those other 
two remained painted on the darkness, the priest and 
victim, facing each other in their shame and agony. 

A dark hour reigned and then the moon appeared 
upon her back, looking over the torn edges of the 
clouds. With admirable impartial eye she witnessed 
a variety of sights as they were veiled and unveiled 

84 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



before her. By her hght the wounded, where they 
had fallen, disengage themselves from the dead and 
begin the first night of their pilgrimage, inch by inch, 
back to their own lines. By her light, also, the snipers 
were aided in their cat-and-mouse game upon the same 
wounded. 

Thus to have watched the night earth through the 
ages is doubtless to have acquired perfect wisdom, or 
perfect indifference! Oh, statesmen of all nations, 
patriots, peoples, could you but look at that cold eye 
and see the night battlefields mirrored there; see also 
your own heart mirrored ! 

But within the coffee-van a small oil lamp burned 
warmly. The orderly in charge had washed all his 
mugs and hung them up in rows on hooks all round 
him. He himself sat at a fixed table reading a novel, 
and whenever he moved the van creaked and all the 
mugs swung to and fro. The mirrors and the brass 
fittings shone cheerfully, and he was keeping a kettle 
hot over a lamp. 

When I entered there was a great creaking and 
jingling of crockery in the cupboards. I sat down on 
a low shelf. 

The orderly turned round and said — 

"It's no good. I've read four chapters of this tale 
and there ain't no murder yet. . . . Seems all about 
parsons " 

I looked at the book. It was Barchester Towers, by 
Trollope, and had once been in my possession. 



85 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"I found it in a locker here," he said. I took the 
book and opened it. "I like heaucuop blood ... in 
a tale," he continued. Then he got up suddenly: 
"Say, sergeant, I know what you'd like, a good drop 
of cocoa, eh?" 

I nodded. 

As he busied himself with his mugs he continued 
to talk. "Now a book I like is a good Hall Caine. Eh, 
but they're fine tales. And they're so true to life." 

"What do you mean by true to life?" I asked. 

"Well," he said, '*what I mean is you'll nearly always 
find in his tales a young woman who's been taken ad- 
vantage of. But get away! You'll not find anything 
of that sort there!" And he pointed the finger of 
scorn at Anthony Trollope. 

"Yet this is true to life," I replied, and continued to 
turn over the pages. 

Gradually the mild characters within the book began 
to stir. Clad in decent black they descended immacu- 
late steps from Deanery doors and trod the pavements 
of Cathedral towns. Their wives, their babies, their 
intrigues, their preferments seemed, at least, as real to 
them as the fantastic business of our lives seemed to 
us. I sipped my cocoa and dreamed of my last incar- 
nation millions of years ago when I was a Victorian 
and a clergyman, when the enemy was Newman or 
Canon Kingsley and the battlefields were Diocesan 
conferences, the common rooms of Oxford, or the 
pages of the Monthly Packet. 

86 



WALPURGIS^ DANCE 



Outside, meanwhile, the circle of patients dwindled. 
By two o'clock only three figures sat round the embers 
in the brazier. Some one had set a hurricane lamp 
on the damp ground, and in the upward beams of its 
light a man with bent head and large limbs sat motion- 
less, speaking. His utterance was as much to himself 
as to others. 

"... There was one place we got to : all our offi- 
cers was gone : all our N.C.O.s too ; shot down, every 
bloody one. We was all companies and regiments 
mixed up — Chrise Ormighty couldn't have told who 
was who. Some of us wanted to go on. Some said, 
*No : to hell with it, let's stay here ! There was no one 
to give the order — see. The Germans never once stop- 
ped for us when we charged. They'd beggar off and 
then come working round us with bombs. They 
weren't half clever at that game. It was soon bloody 
murder where we was, so we retired. Well, some 

stayed; some retired. There was that S officer 

there too. He'd gone mad in the barbed wire. They 
wanted me to shoot him. / didn't know what to do. 
Awful it was. And bleed me if there weren't a Wigan 
lad and a Burnley lad wounded and wouldn't quit talk- 
ing football. And the mad officer calling and calling 
his regiment. See, we had to go back. They had their 
machine-guns in that there village in no time. We 
could see them all, in their gray uniforms, making over 
the hills like lice. We'd gone too far — see? But I 
swore I'd end those bombers. Eight of them had got 



87 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

into a trench on our left. I went round alone. It was 
nearly dark by then. Five I got ; they said, 'Camerade, 
Camerade' — they all do, but I spiked them ; all but one. 
A young chap he was. In the moonlight he only looked 
sixteen. Not that neither. I sent him in front of me 
down the trench. He wept and carried on : and then, 
bash me ! if he didn't nearly do me in, after all. We 
passed a box of hand grenades half open. He made 
a grab for one, nearly got it, too, but I gave him one 
on his napper just in time. Even then I didn't stick 
him. Couldn't. When we got out on the road he 
wanted to shake hands. I took him down to Sailly, for 
I had this bit of a wound myself. He seemed quite 
grateful at the finish. 

"But they're a rum set of fellows — no mistake. 
There^s a lot of youngsters among them. They say a 
lot of these snipers are youngsters. 

*'They never wait to meet us man to man. But 
they can fight behind guns — any sort of guns. They're 
wide — no mistake. They seem to fight with their 
heads. But we'll learn: those that are left of us." 



There are no calls and curtains here. All is anti- 
climax except Death or Peace. Men of the R.A.M.C. 
who move quietly into or out of danger without praise 
know this In certain moods men in the mass reveal 
their souls, as in certain winds leaves blow white, 
showing their undersides. Soldiers then march full 

88 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



of foreboding to triumph, or singing to annihilation; 
that is as we see them, but they are already in a spirit 
world. 

All hands now to the stretchers. Back, therefore, 
to the trenches and those dressing-station dug-outs 
that used to be musty enough ! 

But what can they be like now? 

In a foul den smelling of antiseptics, bully beef, old 
clothes and dried blood, behold Sparky again with 
sleeves rolled up at more serious work than ever. His 
fringe is still in curl, his moustache still pointed, the 
same fag end in his mouth! But his eyes are lined 
with fatigue. 

In this phantasmagoria we meet our friends in un- 
forseen places and are grateful for their familiar 
traits. However busy a well-trained medical orderly 
may be he always has time for a crack with a friend. 
Sparky and his officer had put up at least seventeen 
femurs alone and used up all available Listen splints. 

His officer, who worked in a similar den along the 
same trench, left all lesser fractures to him. This 
officer entered for a moment. Externally he was well- 
known to us. He put his head on one side and allowed 
his eyes to dwell upon a patient exactly as of old in 
the receiving-room. It was fitting he should be un- 
changed for any stress of circumstances. His courage 
and a certain whimsical attitude to the business in 
hand rejoiced his subordinates. He had but now 
stood up on the railway line in a little squall of shells 



89 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

and coolly directed the unloading again of a trolly 
full of wounded ready to start. He ordered Sparky 
to sleep for two hours; an order he instantly obeyed. 

We were directed on to the quarries, which were 
reported full of wounded, and from which many 
stories had come down to us. It seemed to be still 
daytime when we started, but night overtook us in 
the winding alleys. After hours of shuffling round 
endless clay corners we emerged at length upon a shal- 
low arena where troops were coming and going. 

Danger sharpens the senses like low music. It 
seemed that for our benefit the monomaniac genius of 
Man had contrived a marvelous compositon of Death 
and the indifferent moon upon her clouds, of little 
black shifting figures of men, a heap of slain, giant 
shadows climbing the earth as the flare lights waned, a 
bent tree, the distant roar of big guns, singing bullets, 
moving lights. 

Here, truly, was the second circle of sad Hell. 

The bearers moved down across the sand and round 
the side of the quarry; little squads of men linked by 
the stretchers. 

We sat on a damp heap of sandbags and waited. 
When our turn for patients came we moved forward 
again, and stopped opposite the mouth of a dug-out 
where an orderly was supporting a patient. A medi- 
cal officer stood by directing the bearers. "Move off," 
he said with an impatient swing of his arm, as soon as 
the patient had lain down upon the stretcher. 

90 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



The rain had made the chalky soil slippery, so that 
the bearers often lurched against the side of the trench 
and leaned heavily against it, unable to recover them- 
selves under the load. A man of our squad fainted 
from fatigue and we finished that journey without his 
assistance. As the night had fallen upon us, so now 
the day broke and found us still rounding clay cor- 
ners, still stumbling forward, while the long grass on 
the parapets danced in the wind. 

''Lower stretcher," some one groaned, and the two 
bearers closed their eyes and slept for a fraction of a 
second as they came to rest, bowed to the ground. 
Then I opened my eyes and saw matted hair and a 
brow knit in pain, quite close to me. Who was this? 
Of course ! Our last patient ! Though the senses were 
numb from exhaustion the brain would notice every 
detail, and insisted on recalling everything — 

"You have been again to the quarry. You went 
deep down into the earth into a tomb where a number 
of people lay on the ground with their heads covered. 
A candle burnt on a box, and the gun-fire sounded 
sleepy. Then you asked in a loud voice who had 
been there longest, and some one sat up at once and 
pointed out a very old Scotchman with gray hair, and 
a young officer who had been given morphia. ..." 

"Is it much farther, Sergeant ?" said a voice, calling 
up to me out of a bottomless pit. . . . 

"Then the man who had sat up lay down again — 
you remember, and you got the patients out one by 



91 



FIE LDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

one. And the officer's lips were blue with morphia 
and he shivered in the cold. He had nothing over him 
but an old overcoat stiff with blood. Then they were 
sniping the entrance to the quarry and your two 
squads had to take their chance. And all round the 
sides of the quarry boots of dead men and sleeping 
men protruded from the holes. ..." 

"Lower stretcher." 

"And your patient, the officer, was too tall for the 
stretcher, so that his heels hung over one end and his 
head over the other. And he weighs thirteen stone. 
He says so himself apologetically . . . and his teeth 
are chattering. . . ." 

"Lift stretcher" 

"Is it much farther, Sergeant?" 

"Not much farther," I replied, but it was a lie. 

Gay voices were heard coming towards us, and pres- 
ently a curve in the trench revealed a young subaltern 
at the head of a working party. They flattened them- 
selves against the trench to let us pass. The subaltern 
did not perceive that our patient under the old over- 
coat was an officer. 

"Never mind, my man," he said, as we squeezed 
past; "you'll soon be in England among the pretty 
nurses." 

Out patient was gazing at the sky. "My God," he 
groaned, and resumed the endurance of his torture. 

A little further on we came upon a group of Royal 
Engineers with a dixy of tea between them. One of 

92 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



the group stepped forward with some tea and rum in 
a mess tin. With great tenderness he went down on 
one knee and held the dirty mess tin to the patient's 
mouth, who supped at it Hke a child and fell back on 
the stretcher. We leaned against the trench, staring 
stupidly. Then we staggered on. "It's an officer," 
they whispered to each other as we left them. 

Onward through Hell's endless purlieus we went. 

There was no end to this labor. Our patient, star- 
ing upwards, was so weary of the sky. We were so 
weary of the earth. The clay walls were a grave of 
infinite length. Why not subside within them and die ? 

"Is it much farther. Sergeant?" 

"Not much farther." And this time it was not a lie, 
for there, showing in front of us, were the three pop- 
lar trees. Beneath them ran Humanity Trench, and 
at the foot of one was our dressing-station. . . . 

When we looked up again the three trees were larger 
and nearer. The sun shone on our left above the para- 
pet. 

We lowered the stretcher, for the last time, we 
hoped, and sat in a heap at the head and foot of our 
patient. Three men passed us along the trench and we 
looked at their boots as they passed, not troubling to 
look up. But a voice floated down to us, the voice of 
an angel. It said, "The division is being withdrawn, 
but the ambulance must clear its wounded first." And 
another voice growing fainter replied, "Some of the 
Jocks are already asleep behind the lines." 



93 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"Lift stretcher.'' There is Humanity Trench. Only 
another fifty feet, and for Christ's sake mind his shoul- 
der at this right-hand turn. ..." 



Twenty-four hours later, in the city of Bethune, I 
found myself at the door of Agostin's bakehouse. I 
pushed the door open and entered. Agostin nodded to 
me. "Monsieur had then returned to billets — yes?** 
and he continued making those singular movements 
over his kneading-machine. He worked always strip- 
ped to the waist. His body was brown, and he wore 
blue linen trousers and canvas slippers. He dived 
skilfully into the kneading-machine and brought out 
an armful of dough, which he slapped down on a 
board and weighed on a pair of large scales. Old 
bowed Marie, who both drove the baker's cart and 
helped in the bakery, and little Berthe, were busy 
meanwhile powdering the long baskets with flour and 
putting the dough into them. The baskets had canvas 
linings and were very thick and strong. Everything 
and every one became powdered with flour — floor, win- 
dow-ledge, little Berthe's eyebrows, the ridge of the 
oven, Agostin's arms and shoulders, the empty dove's 
cage, old Marie's kerchief. Eternally the fairy snow 
falls and settles, and the little dog who guards the 
bakehouse at night, and who sleeps over the oven by 
day, eternally leaves his pad marks on the floor. 

I stood with my back to the oven door, growing 

94 



WALPURGIS' DANCE 



warmer and warmer, and I determined I should re- 
main there all day. After the Walpurgis' dance of the 
last three days there was something exquisitely sooth- 
ing in watching the quiet, deft, sinuous movements of 
Agostin. He seemed never to repeat himself, never 
to hesitate, like Marie and Berthe in their conversa- 
tion. 

I told them something of what I had seen and heard. 
Was it not but yesterday, but five miles distant, that 
all that had happened? How was it, then, that even 
as I spoke it all seemed childish and unreal? Little 
Berthe ran off to her coffee. Old Marie nodded over 
her baskets ; and Agostin, though he listened politely, 
continued his movements, and always moved me out 
of the way when he wanted to get at the oven door. 

When the time came to take out the loaves that 
were baked, Agostin took a long rake and plunged it 
deep into the oven. Soon the delicious, crisp, frag- 
rant-smelling "breads" were heaped together and load- 
ed on to Marie's van. Then Agostin continued his 
motions at the kneading-machine. 

What was it that so affected me in watching him? 
Was it a secret, yet perfectly natural, mental compen- 
sation? He seemed to assure me of the fact that not 
all the wars since the beginning of time had been able 
to stop him and his kind from thus moving about their 
peaceful work of making and baking five hundred 
loaves in a day. Was it the doubt of this that I had 
seen sometimes in the fearful eves of the wounded — 



95 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

a doubt that they had lost the pleasant homely things 
of life for ever? That bread, vegetables, lamplight, 
the open hearth, had somehow been forfeited, the com- 
fortable clothing of our minds stripped from us, as 
we lay on our backs in pain in unspeakable places. 
For a moment their sorrow, undistracted by fatigue, 
was mine. Then, in the same lonehness of outraged 
sense, I turned again to watch the hairy, floury-whit- 
ened arms of Agostin supporting the world. 



96 



CHAPTER VI 

A CHRISTMAS 

"What a pantomime creature is Man ! Not content with 
home he attends the play, reads romances and entertains 
a hundred adventurous sentiments. Yet not content with 
adventures when he has them, nothing pleases him more 
than to find some corner where he can tell firelight stories 
with others and imagine himself at home again." — Old Flay. 

THE quintette was rehearsing "The Comrades' Song 
of Hope" for the concert at Christmas. The diffi- 
culty that had chiefly stood in our way was a suitable 
place for rehearsals. One evening I asked Belgian Ma- 
rie if we could come into her kitchen and sing English 
songs. 

"Les chansons — mais oui." 

Sparky was then up in the trenches. He might have 
objected otherwise to the secret of Marie's parlor, to 
which indeed I had myself brought him, being shared 
by so many persons. The parlor was small, but was 
warm and comfortable, and held an oil lamp. Marie's 
grandfather sat at the stove. He was so old that he 
washed no m.ore. He did nothing, in fact, but sit all 
day at the stove and play with bits of coke. But 
Marie herself was young and had very pretty 

97 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

shoulders that shook noticeably when she laughed. 

One day Sparky and I had brought the mess gramo- 
phone by stealth and played her some waltzes and 
popular airs. Poor girl, it was an event in her life. 
As she listened to the stalest of tunes, her eyes 
sparkled and became dreamy by turns, or a tender ex- 
pression would come into her face. 

It was partly for her sake that I had brought the 
quintette to her parlor. Now she stood at the stove. 

She had made and handed us our cocoa in little 
bowls, and with hand on hip surveyed the singers. 
Her head was a little on one side, graceful and proud 
in repose. Sometimes she looked at the faces of the 
young men with an unconscious inquisitive look. They 
knitted their brows over the difficult parts in "The 
Comrades' Song of Hope," such as — 

"Play the man . . . play the man. . . . 
Play the man and win the fight. . . ." 

Marie's kitten jumped on to the knee of one of the 
singers. When he turned the page the kitten sud- 
denly put out its little black paw. Marie laughed 
quickly and delightedly, but the serious singer paid 
no heed. 

"Play the ma-an . . . play the ma-an," 

he continued undisturbed. . . . 

"The Comrades' Song of Hope" was followed by 

98 



A CHRISTMAS 



"Sweet and Low." Private Peep, a little man with 
a true ear for music and a tenor voice above the aver- 
age, gave out the first few bars in a soft voice, as 
though unwilling to draw attention to himself. Neth- 
ersole from behind his large spectacles studied the 
score, which was written in sol-fa notation. Uncle 
Tom, chief bass, in the absence of Corporal Bailiff 
who was on guard, opened a large mouth and waited 
for the proper moment. ScoUy and Alf, assistant 
tenors, looked along the table to Private Peep. The 
first rendering of "Sweet and Low" was deemed rough 
and the song was repeated. Marie liked it beyond 
others that followed. 

I noticed that Marie had put on her black velvet 
blouse in order to show up her golden hair. She had 
also pinned up on the wall in our honor an English 
picture, a page from the Tatler, representing an Eng- 
lish Countess, and her three beautiful children dressed 
en Fauntleroy. Marie was exactly the right kind of 
audience, attentive, impressionable, attractive herself, 
yet ministering to our needs. We spent a happy eve- 
ning and filed out from behind the table into the cold 
dark road regretfully. 

We had said good-bye to Marie and we saw her no 
more, nor her grandfather fumbling at the stove, nor 
her oil lamp, nor the picture of the countess on the 
wall. 

We learned we were moving, and wondered where 
our next rehearsal would be held. 



09 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



The sergeant's mess of our new quarters was an 
ample room, with casement windows, green painted 
panelling and a paved floor. It formed the chief par- 
lor of a farm house in the village. In the next room 
sat the ancient farmer Monsieur R. and his elder 
daughter, who spent most of her time cooking and 
ironing. His younger daughter Leah did no house 
work. She was only sixteen and was very inquisitive. 
Most of her time was spent skipping about between 
the two rooms. Monsieur R. sat in a wooden arm- 
chair in front of the stove in the evenings and liked 
to talk with us as we went in and out. 

"Cafe au rhum bong for serjongs," we would say. 

"Thumbs up. Victory is us," he would reply. He 
was over sixty years old but still healthy and active, 
and about his farm buildings before reveille in the 
mornings. On Sundays he dressed in black and went 
to mass. 

On a morning shortly before Christmas, after pa- 
rade and kit inspection, I received instructions to help 
forward arrangements for the Christmas dinner. 
Chatham and I were to make a survey of the village 
and report on a suitable spot for the Christmas din- 
ner. 

"Who are we to report to ?" I asked. 

'*To the Dinner Committee," replied Chatham. 

"Who are they?" 

"Nobody knows. But let us go into the estaminet 
and count the glasses." 

100 



A CHRISTMAS 



The estaminet finally selected was kept by a smart, 
capable lady who had glasses and beer enough to go 
round, and who was willing to accommodate a crowd. 
A record of the beer drunk would be kept faithfully 
on her part. 

We said we would cook the dinner ourselves and 
convey it to the estaminet. But what about a piano ? 

Madame was extending hospitality to two refugee 
ladies, one of whom sang exquisitely, but there was 
no piano. 

We had heard about the refugee ladies, tres aim- 
ables, would they help in the entertainment? They 
would be enchante sans doute. *'Bong," I said. "Could 
we borrow a piano ?" 

Madame then told us that there was but one piano 
in the village owned by a very proud lady who lived 
at the farm with the white gate opposite. What about 
going to see the proud lady? 

"She is not sympathetic to soldiers." 

Meanwhile Chatham leaned against the bar and sur- 
veyed the room with the eye of a mystic. It looked 
very clean and neat in the morning sunshine, with its 
rows of little tables, flower-pots in the windows, and 
with its clean floor covered with sawdust. "It's no. 
use," he said, "it won't hold every one." 

Madame reminded us that there was another room 
overhead where some of our own men were now bil- 
leted, and which could also be used. 

We went upstairs. 

lOI 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



The room above was a large mansard chamber 
feebly lit by two dormer windows covered by muslin 
curtains. Men's kits were ranged round the room. 

We discovered a long trestle table lying along the 
boards of the roof. That would make three tables, 
a fourth could be improvised. The dinner could be 
brought up the narrow stairs. Eighty men could have 
their repast up here and squeeze into the estaminet for 
the concert afterwards. 

Outside in the street the mud was drying up in the 
winter sunshine. A general service wagon passed by 
with a happy A.S.C. man on the box. A feeling of 
Christmas time was in the air. The lady of the esta- 
minet stood on her step and again mentioned the piano 
at the house of the proud lady opposite. She was evi- 
dently anxious for us to attempt the loan of it, but 
did not want to suggest it herself. 

Every one seemed to hold the proud lady in awe. 

Down the street we met Sergeant Allsop with a 
notebook in his hand and a very melancholy expres- 
sion. We stopped him. He said. "It strikes me 
everything's going to be a mix-up. No one knows 
what's what. All the posts are held up. The A.S.C. 
men say they don't want their Christmas dinner along 
with us. There's half the men this morning with kit 
missing, a list of religions wanted at once and every 
one's out on a route march, and Fm orderly sergeant/' 

"And we've been frantically busy," I said, "all 
this morning, not a minute to spare, and who knows 

102 



A CHRISTMAS 



anything about what we're doing? Nobody. No one 
knows who the Committee are. There's not a room 
in the village big enough to hold every one. No tables 
to be had anywhere. We can't all sit on the floor. 
No piano. ... No nothing." 

"And who's going to get the vegetables, oranges and 
biscuits for the menu?" asked Chatham. "If they're 
not bought at once there'll be none left in the shops." 

"The whole thing will be a box-up. ..." 

"Bound to be." 

Then Sergeant Allsop went on his way, but he called 
us back, and related the latest story from the cook- 
house. "Snice but snaughty — what ? Not a word ! I 
must be off now and get this list of diseases — re- 
ligions, I mean." 

After which we went our ways, considerably 
brightened again. 

"Let's go and see Private Joseph the carpenter 
about tables," I suggested. "There's always great vir- 
tue in a carpenter." 

Joe had taken up his quarters in a kind of shed, 
having canvas walls made of a wagon cover that 
bulged inwards in the wind. All the empty bacon 
boxes from stores and cook-houses belonged to him 
by right, and no matter where the ambulance might be 
stationed, Joe lived continually in a busy little world 
of his own, in some cellar, shed or garden house, with 
his precious boxes and tools around him. He had 
plum-brown eyes and always looked surprised when 



103 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

he was asked a question. As he worked he revolved 
monstrous jokes in his mind. He spoke in a mysteri- 
ous underground voice and opened his mouth to Hsten. 
"Here they comes," he said as we entered, and he con- 
tinued working with a plane he had himself made out 
of a block of pitch pine and a safety razor. 

''Any timber to spare, Joe?" He stopped work and 
regarded us. 

**About how much should you require?" 

"Well, we want — er — to improvise a table." He 
scratched his head profoundly. 

"With legs?" 

"Yes." 

"You're asking too much." He resumed his work. 

"Jog — a- table — ^to put beer upon — beaucoup beau- 
coup beer. 

"Funny, I was just thinking of beer when you come 
in." 

"For Christmas dinner, Joe. Listen. Three long 
battens. Two trestles made each of two bacon boxes 
one on top of another." But Joe waved his plane at 
the ceiling. 

"He comes talking to me about tables and beer when 
I'm makin' book-cases for the chaplain and his new 
hut. He'll be in here in a minute to see how they're 
getting on." 

"Well, lend us some wood and we'll knock up some- 
thing." 

"You've never returned that file I lent you." 

104 



A CHRISTMAS 



"It's Christmas time. Return good for evil, Joe." 

"Ho no. I should be doing good all day long." 

Then we told him the cook-house story which' wc 
had lately heard from Sergeant AUsop. It had a soft- 
ening effect on Joe. He laughed with one eye and 
swallowed the joke for what it was worth. He then 
seized himself with both hands and cut a short caper. 
"Well," said he» "there's some battens outside about 
ten foot, but you'll have to get leave from the Colonel 
to use them." 

We turned to leave him and saw a copy of La Vie 
Parisienne lying open near the door. I stopped and 
turned over the pages. Immediately I heard a chuckle 
benind me, and Joe rushed to the wall where he made 
a mark on a piece of paper. "You're the sixth," said 
he. "Ho yes, they all stop a minute — just a minute; 
privates, officers, sergeants, they're all the same. See 
here. There's the parson coming in, in a minute. 
We'll see how long he spends at it. We'll see if he's a 
man. Waiting all the morning for him." 

He cut another caper and returned to his bench. 

At dinner that day I suggested that Mack should 
go and visit the proud lady with the piano and plead 
for it for our Christmas dinner. The refugee lady 
with the beautiful voice should not be left unaccom- 
panied. 

"You speak French so well. Mack." 

"But you have more words at your command." 

"But you have more addressed 



105 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"But you are so good at getting things. Besides, 
Tm going to medical stores. Pass the H.P. sauce." 

*'Have you heard about the refugee ladies?" said 
Sergeant Pite. 

Soon after dinner I went to the farm with the white 
gate. 

Madame at the estaminet caught sight of me through 
her window, and came out on the doorstep. Other 
faces peeped at other windows. By this time the 
whole village had heard of the intended festivity and 
of the piano difficulty. I went up a little drive to a 
doorstep scrubbed and spotless. I knocked, and a 
small middle-aged woman opened the door at once as 
if I was expected. This lady was probably a relation 
of proud Madame O.'s. She led me into a flagged 
parlor where other ladies of various sizes and ages 
were busy sewing or ironing. They all seemed to 
know why I had come and all began speaking at once. 

•'No, she won't let you have the piano," they said 
in French. 

I gathered that Madame O. herself was not present. 
These were only her retinue ; all, no doubt, connected 
by family ties. But it was good policy to win them 
over if possible, so I pleaded with them first. 

"She lent it once to some English officers who kept 
it for three weeks," said one. 

'*But we will return it in two days — we will pay ten 
francs." 

io6 



A CHRISTMAS 



"Pourqaoi les officiers anglais sont-ils si fiers," said 
another. 

"Mais nous sommes les Tommies." 

"Ah — les Tommies — Allez lui demander — Tiens 
j 'adore les Tommies — Sergeant, etes vous marie? 
Mais les officiers anglais — pourquoi si fiers — ils vous 
regardent comme <;a — Vous avez des en f ants sans 
doute." 

The questions swelled to a chorus requiring no an- 
swers but feeding on itself and growing in strength. 

But meanwhile one of the younger ladies, who had 
sped swiftly along a stone corridor opening out of the 
parlor and as swiftly returned, whispered to me that 
Madame O. would see me herself. She told me to fol- 
low her, and sped again along the stone corridor, stop- 
ping in front of a door on the right. 

"The piano's in there, too," she whispered, and left 
me alone. I entered. The room was a kind of bed- 
sitting-room. A very large elderly woman sat in an 
arm-chair. She was so large that she concealed the 
arm-chair with her person. She had handsome dark 
eyes and hair parted down the middle ; but what took 
my breath away was a pair of gigantic stays, re- 
sembling the armor of Hercules, which she held up be- 
tween her extended arms. She had a needle in her 
mouth and was evidently engaged upon mending the 
stays; yet in spite of the needle she began a flow of 
speech immediately I entered the room. I wanted to 
run away, but the sight hypnotized me against my 



107 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

will, I could only stare helplessly. When I recovered 
my wits she had already mentioned the unfortunate 
loan of the piano to the officers and was instructing 
me to look at three scratches upon its surface. 

"Ah! The piano!" I turned to obey her instruc- 
tions. It was a relief. 

"Mais c'est abime," she said behind me. 

"But we should be so careful, and we would tune it 
for you. It would not have far to go — only to Mad- 
ame at the estaminet." I said this over my shoulder, 
but the fascination of terror made me look round 
again. She put the needle in her mouth and extended 
her arms again. Those stays! I trembled! Any 
young man would have done the same. But she con- 
tinued imperturbably. 

"Votre fete de Noel, n'est-ce pas? Vous aurez de 
bonheur — et les deux Mamselles refugees vous assis- 
tent sans doute. EUes chantent de bon voix. On dit 
qu'elles etaient seduis par les Allemands : mais ce fera 
plus interessant. Les anglais sont des hommes comme 
les autres — n'est-ce pas?" 

"Mais pas des betes, Madame," I said. 

"Dieu! lis sont tous des betes. Attendez. Pour 
quinze francs le piano si vous le voulez." 

"Pour deux jours alors?" 

She agreed to this, and after some further conver- 
sation I hrrried out of the presence. The lesser ladies 
in the ante-chamber cried out, full of curiosity, to 
know if I had been successful. 

io8 



A CHRISTMAS 



At the gate I met Chatham, who said we were both 
ordered to proceed to B. with an officer in one of the 
ambulance cars to buy supplies for the Christmas 
dinner. 

"But the piano," I cried. "It should be fetched this 
afternoon, and no one will dare " 

"Ask the orderly sergeant — the officer's waiting " 



We caught a glimpse of Sergeant Allsop's slender 
figure at the corner with his list of religions in his 
hand. He noted down our religion and promised to 
do what he could about the piano. "It's all a box-up," 
he shouted after us. 

Captain T. was drumming impatiently with his heels 
on the floor of the car. 

"As soon as we get there it1l be time to come back," 
he said, lighting a cigarette. "Tell the driver to go 
first to the Expeditionary Force Canteen." The car 
started and we sat back in our seats watching the hop- 
poles pass against the winter sky. 

I felt borne along like a leaf on an impetuous river, 
snatched from eddy to eddy. 

So much for a life of sensations. 
Chatham brought out a list as long as his arm and 
began repeating, "Plum puddings, two dozen. Twelve 
packets of custard powder. Onions, ad. lib. Mixed 
biscuits at E.F.C. Query, English beer. . . ." 

The town was crowded. Poulterers, butchers, 
greengrocers and cake shops were filled with civilians 
and soldiers. An A.S.C. man drove an English road- 

109 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

sweeper down the main street, impeding the traffic. 
Staff cars hooted majestically, and military policemen 
waved their arms at street corners. Officers and 
N C.O.s, emissaries from mess-rooms rushed frantical- 
ly from shop to shop in their efforts to get change of 
five-franc notes. Chatham groaned when he thought 
of the ten- and twenty- franc notes in his pocket. 

When the car stopped opposite the E.F.P., Captain 
T. said "Send as much as you can back in the car 
now. You two will have to walk back." We pre- 
pared to force our way into the crowded canteen. 

The interior was decorated for Christmas with 
holly, with colored calenders, texts and advertise- 
ments. The tins with their red, yellow, blue and green 
labels were reared to the ceiling like volumes in a 
library. The canteen men were driven distracted over 
their tills improvising small change, and pacifying offi- 
cers of high rank. The officers were served from a 
dais at one end, where they could survey the common 
herd and give their orders to any assistant who might 
be within earshot. But down in the arena men scuf- 
fled happily round the Christmas card counter or ex- 
tricated themselves from the crowd round the coffee- 
table, with a mug held high in one hand and a salmon 
sandwich in another. Seats were provided along one 
side where a rest could be had between the wrestling 
bouts. 

"What price Muvver Smif's corfee stall?" said a 
voice near me. 

no 



A CHRISTMAS 



*'Open liim. Wot's inside the blighter?" said an- 
other, inspecting his sandwich. 

"Last Christmas it was hun sausages." 

"Have a mystery," said some one, handing round a 
bag. 

"No fraternizing this Christmas — 'we're here to fight 
and not to fraternize.' " 

"I reckon we'll keep quiet if they keep quiet." 

I saw Big Harry standing in the crowd like a light- 
house bufifetted by waves. We saluted across the 
storm. H*^ was also buying Christmas things for the 
detachment he was in charge of. 

We loaded what we could get on to the car, and then 
Chatham m.entioned another dozen or so of items. The 
afternoon was spent going from shop to shop till dark- 
ness fell. 

But we made each a private purchase. Chatham 
bought a bottle of tangerine liqueur. I bought a quan- 
tity of marrons glaces in a paper bag. 

We returned in darkness and rain along the road, 
laden with parcels. The rain beat us to silence, and 
our boots sank in the mud. But the oil lamp in the 
sergeants' mess shone upon us at last. I held the paper 
bag still in my hand, but the marrons glaces had gone. 
T was speechless. Chatham laughed loud and long: 
"He bought four francs' worth of marrons glaces and 
dropped them along the muddy road — pour beau 
geste" he cried. 

Ill 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

There is a tradition in the Army that on Christmas 
Day the men shall be waited on by the N.C.O.s. But 
Chatham waited on every one. 

In time of pleasure men sometimes show themselves 
for what they are, as truly as in times of panic. 

But the cooks had also played a noble part, and came 
to the tables rather exhausted. We had carried the 
dixies up the main street from the cook-house to the 
estaminet, and the Frenchmen and women got up from 
their vegetable soups to watch the procession of good 
Fnglish joints. 

"Noel, Noel," we called to them ; "diner promenard 
— Anglays beaucoup manger!' The estaminet parlor 
formed an L-shaped room, having a small kitchen 
opening out of one end. The kitchen gave upon a 
back yard, now covered with smoking dixies, sauce- 
pans and dishes. Within the parlor the tables had been 
set end to end and plates and glasses laid. The guests 
had to bring their own knives and forks. 

The piano, which had been fetched and tuned, was 
placed in the corner near the stove. In the room 
above, the muslin curtain had been removed and the 
windows cleaned, so that more light reached the 
tables. S'jme of the men billeted in this room pre- 
ferred to remain and make up parties at their own 
tables; others rushed downstairs and secured seats in 
the bright parlor below. 

"Sergeant, why didn't you give us the tip, and we'd 
have done some decorating for you?" 

112 



A CHRISTMAS 



"Sergeant, why don't they never have only sacred 
picters in France?" 

"Pictersl Get a good side of bacon hanged up, 
that's the best picter." 

'There's the orderly sergeant — ^hope he won't cop 
me for a guard." 

"Who are the poor devils on guard ?" 

'They'll get their dinner all right. They don't go on 
duty till S!x." 

The orderly sergeant, merciless as fate, was looking 
round the already crowded room for his victims. "The 
A..S.C. mei: are coming after all," he called out to me. 
"I'll come and give you a hand presently." At that 
moment I saw, through the back window, Chatham 
stumbling into the yard with a huge box on his shoul- 
der. 

By this lime Madame in her best apron, and the two 
refugee kdies, one dressed in blue plush and the other 
in a gray check skirt and cream blouse, began to move 
busily about, and to take a lively interest in everything. 

Madame was bobbing behind her bar, while the lady 
in blue plush went in and out of a cupboard which 
seemed full of jugs and woollen petticoats. 

"BeaucGUp beer, beaucoup jugs," said an interested 
voice. Then Madame went herself into the cupboard, 
from the depths of which she called out from time to 
time in a piercing voice. 

"Which is the lady who sings so beautifully?" I 
asked a man in the corner. 



"3 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



"That Oiie there/' says he ; "there she is yonder — see 
'. — in a ch^ck skirt and her hair done funny. Eh, but 
she's got a champion voice — and she's a nice lass and 
all Shall us ask her to sing, Sergeant ?" 

"Later on.'-' 

The lady in question was no longer in her first 
youth, but both she and her friend have very graceful 
figures, and wore their clothes effectively. She had a 
pale, expressionless face, as though she had endured 
a great deal of physical pain, but that was only notice- 
able when she was not laughing or talking. She often 
raised her arm in its Parisian sleeve, and put her hand 
to her hair. 

They were both obviously town-bred girls, perhaps 
from Lille or one of the northern cities, and had per- 
haps dreamed of society more comme-il-faut than ours. 
We knew that they were quite alone, without discover- 
able relations owing to the war, and that Madame was 
indeed their benefactress. Towards us they showed 
no trace either of disdain or self-consciousness, but 
only friendliness and vivacity, and there was not a 
man present who did not regard them in the same 
spirit. 

It was Mack, I think, who once remarked that 
French women appeared at first mysterious, and re- 
vealed by degrees that they were simple, whereas Eng- 
lish women appeared simple at first and later revealed 
a baffling complexity. 

A scene of indescribable density had meanwhile de- 

114 



A CHRISTMAS 



veloped in the little kitchen. At the back, where the 
dishing up of the soup was in progress, N.C.O.s hold- 
ing plates squeezed out of the kitchen and hurried to 
the tables where the men who had not yet been served 
were singing patiently. Having delivered their plates, 
they then dashed back to the swarm in the kitchen. 
The core of the swarm was Adam in his shirt sleeves, 
helping plate after plate with fiery energy, while an- 
other helper worked more smoothly beside him. The 
room overhead was not forgotten, and the steep wood- 
en stairs resounded to heavy feet as waiters rushed 
perilously up and down with as many plates as they 
could carry. To compensate for their comparatively 
lonely position up above, a gramophone had been pro- 
vided, which two A.S.C. men took in charge, and 
played incessantly. Its faded tones echoed down the 
stairs. 

Joints with two vegetables followed, then came the 
plum puddings with sauce. Dirty plates gathered in 
shoals in the yard, and were energetically attacked by 
a little band of helpers. Owing to Chatham, hot water 
was forthcoming. He had been fetching and carrying 
from the cook-house all the afternoon. I emerged from 
a long spell of covering plum puddings with sauce and 
found him in the yard. He was looking through the 
back window through which heads and glasses could 
be seen. 

"Well," he said, "they're enjoying themselves, ain't 
they? What's going on now?" 



115 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"Captain T. is replying after drinking healths." 

"Then the beer phase has begun." 

A kind of interval for washing up occurred, during 
which a friend of mine came out into the yard, already 
rather drunk, and began to walk about among the dirty 
plates. "Mind ye," says he, "this is verra pleasant, 
and I'm not running it down, ye understand — Ser- 
geant — but we dinna attach importance to Chistmas 
in Scotland. A man will not take his drop at Christ- 
mas with the same satisfaction as he will on New 
Year's Eve. This is verra pleasant, verra pleasant, but 
I could bide a week for it, Sergeant. It's no the New 
Year yet." 

"That perhaps explains," I said, "why the chaplain 
refused to hold a service this morning — even a volun- 
tary service — when the men asked him. He told me 
it was not the custom in Scotland. He's a Presby- 
terian." 

"It's no the custom. It's no the custom. And why 
should it be? Why go to the kirk if it's not the Sab- 
bath? We're not all papists yet, though there are 
many on the way, and through the porrch of episco- 
pacy ■" 

At this point he broke a plate and was hustled out 
of the yard. Within the estaminet some one began a 
popular tune on the piano. A lamp was lit. Then 
another and another. Men dropped down from the 
darkening room above and squeezed into the parlor 
between the tables. Only the two A.C.S. men stayed 

ii6 



A CHRISTMAS 



upstairs playing the gramophone, with absorbed faces. 

Mack and I found two chairs and sat in the door- 
way of the kitchen. We could see half of the crowded 
room in front of us, the rows of heads and the glasses 
along the tables. 

A soloist had begun to sing. It was Private Peep, 
who accompanied himself and sang sweetly in his 
drawing-room tenor. The song was "There's a Dear 
Little Country." It was an old favorite and was loudly 
applauded. 

"Why are we so fond of sentimental songs about 
Ireland, I wonder?" 

"They are nearly as popular as Yankee rag-times." 

A ragtime followed. W^e sang the chorus and 
tapped glasses. Then I noticed that an old Frenchman 
had entered. He went over to the ladies at the bar, 
and sat smilingly near them, smoking a clay pipe. He 
nodded and smiled to every one. 

Reggie was now singing a comic song of the old 
style which gave opportunity of alluding to charac- 
ters in the audience. Shouts and laughter followed 
each sally. Reggie was a man who never changed 
under any persuasion of circumstances. His home 
was in one of the loveliest villages in western Eng- 
land. He never spoke much of his home, but he never 
lost touch with it. He always grinned when he sang 
his songs, and threw over the performance an old ale- 
house joviality and direct humor. 

One of the French ladies came forward between 



117 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

the tables carrying a jug. Glasses were raised. She 
bent her head, smiled and nodded. The light from a 
swinging lamp fell on her shoulders. 

'They'll ask her to sing," I expect. "See— there's 
the sergeant-major going up to her." 

An interval was filled by the pianist with a render- 
ing of "The Long, Long Trail." 

"I hate that bloody wail,' said some one near by. 

"There's a certain crude melancholy in it," said 
Mack, "and in other popular songs." 

"We are poor in our pleasures." 

"This is comfort, not pleasure. We are comforting 
ourselves." 

When we had all sung "The Long, Long Trail," sev- 
eral heads were turned towards the French ladies to 
see if they were much impressed. 

The next song was a pleasant surprise. The old 
Frenchman suddenly removed his clay pipe from his 
mouth and stood up, still smiling. He began to sing 
before we well knew what he was about, and only after 
the noise had been hushed could we hear him. It was 
evidently a comic song, for he laughed at it himself, 
and the ladies giggled behind the bar. Yet it was very 
different from any English song, with its adventurous 
phrases and repetitions and its ceaseless prattle of 
words, which appeared more important than the tune. 
The song had several verses very entertaining to the 
ear, thought not to the understanding: and it came to 
an end as suddenly as it began. We all applauded it 

ii8 



A CHRISTMAS 



loudly, and called for more drinks. The old man sat 
down and looked towards Madame of the estaminet, 
as if for her approval. 

"Now, perhaps, Mamselle will sing?" But appar- 
ently the lady was shy. The next item was an honest 
attempt by an N.C.O. to give a speech from Shakes- 
peare, but his voice was scarcely strong enough to 
command silence. 

Men who were not drunk listened respectfully, and 
a few with pleasure. 

"My liege, I did deny no prisoners. 
But I remember when the fight was done." 

At first the majestical language fell on our ears only 
as wind in the rigging of our minds. "It's no use," I 
thought; "we are no longer heroical, why disturb us 
with old achievements impossible to repeat." But the 
closing lines had a kind of appropriateness. 



"And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth 
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise, 
And that it was great pity — so it was — 
This villainous saltpetre should be digged 
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth 
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed 
So cowardly " 

The clinking of glasses continued, and the plates of 
cigarettes were becoming empty. "Parmaceti for ab- 
dominal cases," said Mack as if making a mental note. 

119 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

. . . "Irony and Heroism go hand in hand now. 
There has been no single patriotic song. . . ." 

Then some one in front said, "The French lady is 
going to sing ! the French lady !" Necks were craned. 
The hubbub and the snatches of conversation died 
down. Suddenly a woman's voice leaped like a thin 
flame into the air, and every one held their breath. 
We could not see the singer from where we sat. She 
was singing like a lost soul. It was the Marseillaise. 

We knew the tune well enough and used to whistle 
it on the march, but none of us had heard it from 
French voices. 

Now we seemed to hear it for the first time, from 
this mysterious woman. I rose with others and pene- 
trated into the room. 

The other two women had joined in and the three 
were standing together behind the bar. The old man 
stood up, too, and was beating time with his clay pipe. 
Some new spirit had seized us all. It was nothing of 
comfort or pleasure, heroism or romance. We were 
on our feet to the real thing at last, to something dy- 
namic and intangible behind which we dimly saw the 
motives of our own hard lives. We roared the choius 
to syllables of our own, and when the women had fin- 
ished the applause was deafening. I seemed to hear 
remote voices shouting through mine, "Dans le coeur 
je vous porte . . . Frangais . . . savoir faire mu- 
sic des revolutions. ..." We clapped and shouted 
continuously, and many men pressed round the bar. 

120 



A CHRISTMAS 



But she would not sing again, and continued, with 
faint color in her cheeks, to serve at the tables. 

Many songs followed, but to none was such an ova- 
tion given. The noise and moist tumult increased, 
and men began to sing songs on their own account. 
The concert songs became increasingly difficult to hear. 
The quintette sang their "Comrades* Song of Hope" 
with spirit and were well applauded. We were glad 
we had not rehearsed against difficulties in vain. 

The sergeant-major looked at his watch and allowed 
a last song. "YouVe all given us a fine time," said a 
friend, leaning against the door post. "Sergeant," said 
another friend, leaning against the first, "Teddy's that 
wild — he shaved his nose this morning by mistake, 
and we tell him he'll have to go on shaving it." 

"Good-night, Sergeant. You're not drunk in the 
Army if you can lie on the ground and not fall off 
. . . it's a great test ... the ground." 



121: 



CHAPTER VII 

IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 



"Phantoms of countless lost, 
Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions, 
Follow me ever — desert me not while I live. 

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love, 
Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, 
Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with 
tender pride. 

Perfume all — make all wholesome, 
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, 
O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry." 

Whitman. 

THE field with the single poplar was like an Elysian 
field in the evening sun. The blue orchises 
trembled youthfully. The cuckoo flowers shook their 
delicate petals in the breeze, and if you stood and 
looked wastward across the field, each blade of grass 
shone a golden green and left a tiny shadow behind it. 
The breeze, mild but persistent, carried to the nos- 
trils the very breath of existence. As every color of 
the spectrum combines to form daylight, so every nat- 
ural odor seemed here combined to form the smell of 
spring, unfathomable promise, earth with still a thou- 

122 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 

sand summers in her breast. The breeze had turned a 
windmill all day on top of the opposite hill, and as I 
looked towards it I seemed to catch the smell of fresh- 
ly-ground flour. Other scents were discernible. The 
young leaves of the elms, the maturer leaves of the 
poplars, the hawthorn, the larches on Mont Noir, the 
plum blossom, the wood smoke from cottage chimneys, 
the stables, the farms and the pasture lands all yielded 
something to be carried away by the breeze and 
mingled in a common breath. It was the last con- 
vincing message to the most delicate of the senses that 
summer had fully come, eternally richer than our 
dreams ; and with summer a mutual labor for Nature 
and Man, a mutual joy. 

Standing thus in the wind's eye and the sun*s, all 
objects seemed perceived directly by the senses, and 
all were equally penetrated and transfused by light. 
But when I turned with my back to the sun to retrace 
my steps a change took place. The beauty was as 
great, but quite different. Instead of an equal glory 
and transparence, the million little surfaces of field 
and tree now reflected the light and showed each its 
particular shape and color. They all shone and shiv- 
gred and drew attention to themselves. "Look, I am 
a blade of grass." "Look, I am a willow leaf," they 
now seemed to cry. But before they had been one 
voice, "Look at the sun through me. Look at the sun 
through me." 

I followed my shadow back across the field in the 

12.3 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

direction of the town where we were billeted. The 
town also stood on a hill looking across to Mont Noir, 
and in its degree now made its contribution of shape 
and color to the scene. A hundred dormer windows 
winked from the tiled roofs. Lilac bushes peeped over 
garden walls ; the gold weather-cock burned like a star 
above the Flemish belfry. The eye ran over surfaces 
of brown brick or gray masonry, dropped into shad- 
ows, or recognized familar buildings between clouds 
and trees with satisfaction. 

The little city had been built when men still took 
joy in the forms they created, and the harmony of 
these forms with the forms of Nature around them 
was not due to a trick of moonlight but was unanswer- 
able in the full light of day. And this harmony was 
not the work of one great mind, artist's or architect's, 
but the work of numerous common minds who had 
here made plans, raised scaffolds, baked bricks, learned 
the angles of roofs from the weight of tiles, the heights 
of towers by the strength of masonry, learned to cor- 
rect and to improve through the generations, learned 
above all to omit the ugly and increase the harmonious. 

Neither was the result that of the inspiration of a 
single genius, but of the continual discrimination of 
lesser minds, but the result was good. What beauty, 
therefore, must lie in the common minds of men. I 
tried to turn in thought to the source of that beauty, 
and immediately from the past there reached the nos- 

124 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIEL D 

trils of my mind another gale of summer, compound- 
ed from all the hopes, aspirations and joys of men's 
minds, seeds dropped from old achievements in per- 
ennial blossom, the rich various foliage of elder gen- 
erations unseen but fruitful. 

From where I stood I could see one of the main 
streets leading up the hill between the houses. Little 
figures stood at their doors or went busily to and fro. 
Presently I reached the foot of the hill and ascended 
it as the sun set. 

I entered the portal of a massive Louis XIV house, 
used at that time for a divisional rest station, and 
crossed the court to the kitchens. Here one of the 
cooks was preparing a meal for the night-orderlies and 
another was sprinkling sand on the paved floor. A 
lamp hung from the ceiling, for the place was dark 
even in daytime. A sound of feet on the boards and 
the noise of a gramophone could be heard from the 
sergeants' mess above. I ran up the dark winding 
stairs and discovered Sparky and Big Harry playing 
crib and very gravely moving their match-stalks up 
their markers. Little Harry stood at the gramophone. 
He held a record in his hand under the light, and 
gazed at it curiously. "There was a chap in here the 
other day," he said, "who said he could read the music 
off a record by looking closely at it. He said it was 
a gift ... the hell of a gift." 

"Get away," said Sparky. 

"But I don't know that I believe hijn," said Little 

125 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

Harry dreamily. He was listening to his favorite rec- 
ord, "Less than the Dust." 

Steps came bounding up the stairs, and Adam en- 
tered glowing with beer and with life. He swore a 
Dumfries oath at the gramophone and tore oflF "Less 
than the Dust." Then shuffling the records like a 
pack of cards, he found his favorite and started it. 

"Here's a song for ye. None of your stale Eng- 
lish. A Scotch song, my boy." 

It was "Jock of Hazeldean." 

"What are the words, Adam?" He gave me a 
scornful glance as at an ignoramus. 

" Why weep ye by the tide, ladie. ... * They only 
give three verses, and there ought to be four." 

"Who's it by?" 

"By Rob Tannahill." 

"I think it's by Walter Scott." 

"Rob Tannahill." 

"Walter Scott." 

"How much?" 

"Tuppence." 

"I'll hold the money," said Sparky. 

The only references near by was a volume of Scotch 
songs on a shelf, left there by the last mess. The 
problem was left in doubt between Walter Scott and 
Rob Tannahill, and the money went very pleasantly in 
drinks to all present. 

The gramophone continued joyfully, and I forgot 
about the elysian field. 

126 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 

I slept in an attic near by, where the night-orderlies 
slept in the daytime. A skylight just overhead 
dripped when it rained. The place seemed haunted by 
the dusty ghosts of old travelling-trunks, and the 
Louis XIV door would not close properly. I tied it 
with a piece of string because of a certain Louis XIV 
rat who was wont to trot up and down the corridor 
at night making as much noise as a dog, and who on 
one occasion had put a paw under this door and rattled 
it. 

Just before falling asleep I remembered the elysian 
field. Then the mixed events of past hours faded out 
into sleep. 

I woke just before midnight, and fell to coughing. 
Before I was fully awake I heard some one coughing 
in the next attic; and almost immediately became 
aware of an evil Something in my throat, in the room, 
in the corridor. A night-orderly with a flickering lamp 
came along, and the word Gas was passed from mouth 
to mouth. 

Then it seemed that every one in every place was 
suddenly awake and apprehensive. 

Rising, I put my head out of the skylight. It was 
quite dark outside. I felt the breeze, felt its gentle 
persistence. In a moment of real horror I realized 
that it was the evil thing which had awakened me from 
sleep. 

The moment of panic passed, but the reflections that 
followed were worse. A gas attack was in progress, 

127, 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

We knew what that meant; knew what it meant to 
hundreds at that moment. But our own discomfort 
was like a hideous newly-discovered clue, impossible 
to forget, leading us to the trenches, five miles away. 

I remembered the breeze of the night before. Then 
it had meant Life. Now it meant Death. Compelled 
against my will I again put out my head into the 
darkness. 

Powers of Satan, intangible and hideous evil, have 
you achieved thus far, to use for your own purposes 
the wind that bloweth where it listeth! The impres- 
sion of Evil was now as real and as complex as that 
other of Good had been. The senses were struck as 
by a blow; yet the blow persisted and penetrated. 
There came upon them the conviction of corrosion 
and active destruction and at the same time of some- 
thing slow and subtle — the conviction of poison. 
Both curiosity and dread were provoked. The smell 
brought recollections of hospital, workshop, labora- 
tory. It conveyed the indoor sweat of alchemists and 
brevv'crs of potions. It had come over hills and woods, 
it had swept the countryside, yet seemed to emerge 
only from the lungs of Hell, 

Meanwhile a familiar sound reached our ears: the 
rapid thunderous noise of many guns in action. A 
bombardment was in process. How often had we 
heard the sound before. But on this night it spoke 
with a special voice. It was the growl of one Devil 
recognizing another. 

128 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 



I withdrew my head into the room. In the cough- 
ing silence there seemed a moment when the deHcate 
sense of smell, capable of the rarest suggestion and 
association, revealed a mysterious malicious Hatred 
astride of the world. 

The sound and the smell mingled together. Who 
had labored with test-tubes, who had threaded laby- 
rinths to achieve thisf Who had yielded to unholy 
spells? Who had gone blind? Who had spent whole 
lives of secret labor to produce this the voice of Death, 
the smell of Chaos? 

Here was the achievement of the indifferent mad 
strifes and vanities, old failures revenged, and ani- 
mosities of men, gathered out of the unswept mad- 
house of the human mind. 

Next morning the sun shone and bacon frizzled 
for breakfast. The aspect of the world was un- 
changed. But every one talked of the gas attack and 
compared symptoms. At breakfast it took its place 
along with other important subjects. 

"If it was like that with us, what was it like up in 
the trenches?" said Bill. 

"I can see Fm going to lose an hour's leave with 
this daylight bloody saving bill," said Pite sleepily. 

"That was just the wind for a gas attack — about 
five miles per hour," said the Motor-Transport ser- 
geant. 

Orderly-sergeant Jim, feeling inquisitive, turned 

129 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

to the sergeant-major. "Are you expecting any ord- 
ers then, Sergeant-Major?" 

Sergeant-Major Jack got up and seized his immacu- 
late belt, while Joe the servant brushed an invisible 
speck from his arm. He assumed an enigmatic 
smile. "Who says the Division's going to the Portu- 
guese front?" Then he dashed out. 

"The last rumor hasn't been cancelled yet," said 
Mack. He turned to me and resumed, "If in the 
course of your morning's work you should find your- 
self near my dispensary, it will be worth your while 
to come in and see my sterilizer and other polished 
instruments. They are quite dull this morning. 
They've been oxidized by the chlorine last night. 
Charles is now polishing them. But you'll see the re- 
sult unmistakably." 

"An invitation from the Dispenser is as good as a 
command," I murmured, and went out. 

The sun sparkled on the busy scene in the court. 
A water-cart drawn by mules came clattering through 
the gateway. 

Patients in flannel pyjamas came down the steps 
from the house smoking cigarettes. 

"After all," I thought, "last night was only another 
eventless incident, like so many in war, without re- 
sult save a few more deaths of unknown persons, a 
few more among so many, forgotten two meals hence." 

"Or will there be a sequel?" 

The divisional rest station was a hive of industry 
130 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 



subdivided into many parts. In the field behind the 
hospital the tent Hnes were having their morning's in- 
spection, and Sergeant-Ma j or Jack stopped an order- 
ly and pointed to a cigarette-end. Cigarette-ends were 
crimes. The crime was removed. 

"Remove a cigarette-end when you see one, and 
keep the British Army in the field in health; is that 
not so, Sergeant?" 

"Yes, sir," I replied. 

The general duty orderly sighed and continued his 
work. Presently he looked up and saw the sergeant- 
major had gone. "Have you noticed. Sergeant," said 
he, "what a number of swallows have come out this 
morning? There's been a great increase in them these 
last few days." 

But I pointed sternly to another cigarette-end. 

My duties carried me from place to place, and 
every one was in high good humor. The May sun- 
light penetrated everywhere. In the garden outside 
the dispensary the lilac was in full bloom. I went 
up the steps leading to the glass doors of a large room 
which was used as the dispensary and receiving-room. 
Within I found Charles, who looked at me with his 
usual surly friendliness. 

"Look here," said he, pointing to the instruments 
he had been trying to polish, "as if I had nothing 
better to do than to polish up after gas attacks." 

I gazed curiously at the direct evidence of what 
the sunshine bade me believe was but a nightmare. 

131 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

I went out and down past the lilac bush and turned 
into the court. Descending some steps into a base- 
ment floor, I found Private Nethersole hard at work 
on what he termed his Chinese laundry. He had 
scores of patients' kilts beside him, and a table in 
front of him. He took the kilts one by one and ex- 
plored the pleats carefully, having a special object in 
view, opening them out and then ironing them into 
position again. He wore a large pair of spectacles, 
and explored with minute care. 

He nodded to me, and I went through into another 
basement room where Private Joseph the carpenter 
worked. I asked him to lend me his saw. He was 
very unwilling to part with it, or indeed with any 
instrument of his craft. But I wanted his saw, for it 
was the only sharp one in the Ambulance. He was 
very busy making hospital furniture out of bacon 
boxes, and he asked how he could continue his work 
without his tools. When I promised to bring the saw 
back within half an hour he allowed me to take it, 
and I climbed the steps again to the court. 

I rejoined my squad in the field, and used the prec- 
ious instrument with my own hand. The sharp teeth 
bit into the wood and the sawdust flew. I forgot 
everything but the joy of working rapidly with a good 
instrument. 

Then some one stood beside me, between me and 
the sun. I heard that I was wanted by the orderly- 
sergeant. I turned and went across the field towards 

132 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 

the hospital, meeting another messenger on the way. 
Then the sergeant-major himself came round a cor- 
ner and hailed me. I held Joe's saw in my hand. 

"Sergeant, take a squad over at once to the Casualty 
Clearing Station. Here's a list of men. Part}^ re- 
quired at once to help with gas patients. Though why 
we should supply parties to every blinking medical 
unit in Flanders is more than I can say, but look 
sharp." And he hurried away leaving the Hst of men 
in my hands. 

So there is to be a sequel after all. 

In the court of the Casualty Clearing Station, be- 
tween the lime trees, marquees had been pitched with- 
out side curtains. Beneath them their clean floor- 
boards made a continuous wooden platform. When 
we arrived and reported for duty, everything was in 
readiness, but the Ambulance cars had not yet ar- 
rived. A group of orderlies, laughing and chatting, 
waited at the main entrance. They were to unload 
as quickly as possible. 

I went up to Sergeant Rivers, a regular and one of 
the ward masters. He was standing then in his shirt- 
sleeves. 

"The worst of it is there's so little to do for them," 
he said. By them he meant gas patients. 

"What's the new treatment?" I asked. He told 
me, and added, "We have oxygen for them." I 
'ooked at him enviously. He had his profession at his 

133 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

back. He had seen death and disease in many lands, 
and could nurse a ward of typhoid unaided. Beside 
him I was a mere amateur. 

But Sergeant Rivers, unlike many regulars, had 
preserved a certain kindliness and openness of mind, 
which accompanied his strenuous qualities. I felt 
glad that he was on duty with us. 

"Here they come," he said. I turned and saw a 
motor-ambulance come down the slope under the lime 
trees. Another followed it and then another. They 
drew up in turn at the main entrance. Immediately 
a couple of officers came out. 

An hour later the floors of the marquees had been 
more than half covered with men on stretchers put 
close together side by side. Their faces were in 
shade, but their boots projected in rows into the sun- 
light. Each pair of legs was divided from its neigh- 
bour by a little heap of patient's equipment. Over 
legs and equipment the shadows played from the lime 
branches overhead. There was a continual twitter- 
ing of birds in these branches, but also there was an 
undertone coming continually from under the mar- 
quees: an undertone that presently became too fa- 
miliar to notice. An orderly came out from one of 
the marquees with an empty bottle in one hand and a 
measuring glass in the other, and went across to the 
door of the dispensary for more of the mixture he 
was administering. One group of marquees con- 
tained slight cases: another group contained serious 

134 



IN AN ELYSIA N FIELD 

cases. Now and then among the sHght cases some 
conversation breaks out, but is drowned in the noise 
of coughing. An orderly threads his way among them 
with a basket of oranges. He passes another orderly 
coming out, and they exchange mournful glances; 
then one of them stoops and helps to bolster up a 
struggling patient into a sitting position. 

What is it that for once has frightened the general 
duty orderlies out of their accustomed chatter? 

Among the serious cases two hospital nurses are 
quietly moving about, administering a treatment. 
Whenever a dose or an injection is given a little label is 
affixed to the patient. In course of time a patient be- 
comes covered with little labels, and thus covered, 
many are removed from time to time to the mortuary. 

A surgeon, young in years but old in experience, 
strode across the court. He began to help with the 
serious cases. He felt the pulse of one man who had 
rolled off his stretcher and was staring at the sun. 
With a jerk of his arm the surgeon ordered him to be 
removed. 

Another surgeon stands near the new arrivals. He 
is deciding whether they are slight or serious cases, 
and with a look of benevolent stoicism he assigns them 
to one group of marquees or the other, to Purgatory 
or Hades. 

The unloading squad worked busily. They raised 
the flaps of each ambulance in turn and withdrew the 
stretchers carefully one by one, while the car throbbed 

135 



FIEL DS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

lazily and the driver in front, with eyes heavy with 
dust and lack of sleep, gazed vacantly in front of 
him. 

After awhile the cars came less frequently, and at 
length the sound of their wheels on the gravel ceased 
altogether. The work grew lighter, and then I real- 
ized the force of Sergeant Rivers' complaint that there 
was so little to be done for gas patients. In conse- 
quence there was less occupation to distract the mind 
from the vision of unnatural suffering that presented 
itself. The spectacle of the whole crowd thus stricken 
and laboring became more painful than we cared to 
admit to ourselves. The fresh air that passed in and 
out of our own lungs carelessly sustaining life and 
health seemed only a traitor to them. As though 
they had lately played with witchcraft and seen some 
magician face to face, Nature herself had turned from 
them and withheld all that she knew so well how to 
give. Only the dead had an enviable oblivious ex- 
pression. 

The shadows of the leaves continued to play over 
the feet of patients and over the faces of those who 
lay outside the marquees. The early May sunshine 
mocked them. The arrowy swallows mocked them; 
as they darted in and out of the limes, threading airy 
circles. Above the swallows, an aeroplane mounted 
high in the air, filling the sky with its hum, and pres- 
ently disappeared from view. The leaves of the limes 
divided two worlds. 

136 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 



It occurred to me that perhaps some of us here, 
some who had led sheltered lives before the war, 
might never have seen death until active service had 
made it familiar. Certainly some of us had led 
sheltered lives! 

A little procession was crossing the court, two 
bearers with a stretcher between them and a brown 
form on the stretcher. They drew near to the mortu- 
ary door and entered it. 

Then in the sunlight I remembered the ugly vision 
of the night before, as of some Evil Thing abroad in 
the darkness. That had been the reality. The Ely- 
sian field was only a dream. 

I caught sight of Sergeant Rivers later on in the 
afternoon, and went over to him. His work had 
slowed down, and he stood looking across his patients. 
I was surprised to find him strangely moved. I stood 
beside him for a moment, when he turned and spoke. 
He finished by saying, "This kind of thing makes me 
want to suffer everything for every one." Something 
of the kind was in my own mind, but I did not feel 
surprised at his words at the time. His face was no 
further commentary. He took a piece of lint and 
carefully wiped the lips of a patient who was dying. 
He stooped and felt his pulse. 'T give him half an 
hour to live," he said, and turned away. 

A patient, who lay at the end of one of the mar- 
quees, asked me to write a postcard to his home for 
him. He dictated it slowly. As I took down his 

I37i 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

words two officers passed near-by, and snatches of 
their conversation reached us. The patient beside me 
finished dictating the address and paused in thought. 
The voice of one of the officers came towards us — 

"You must remember that these men have dis- 
obeyed orders. They have been caught without their 
gas-helmets. They are repeatedly warned. It is im- 
possible to guard them against themselves. There's 
no death on this occasion among the officers." 

His companion flicked a small stone with his cane. 
They stood for a while and then returned whence 
they had come. The patient beside me was talking 
slowly, as if he had not heard, and still hesitating 
what he should say to his wife. I continued to look 
at the address, which told of a town in the midlands. 

"Of course," said he, bringing out his words pain- 
fully, "I don't want to say aught to frighten her — see. 
Of course I don't feel so bad — not now. But it were 
awful at first. And I couldn't lay hold of my gas- 
helmet for the moment — see. I were reading letters 
from home and all. It were my fault, of course. Ay 
— could ye give me my pack to rest my head against? 
That's better. Ay — it were my fault: and now I've 
to pay for it." 

I couldn't help wondering whether the punishment 
fitted the crime. 

"I dunno what to say. She's that tender-hearted," 
he repeated, and continued to fumble about on his 
stretcher. I was sitting beside him for a long while, 

138 



IN AN ELYSIAN FIELD 

ii 

and together we decided on a message that would be 
suitable. Then I left him and posted the card. He 
was one of those who recovered sufficiently during the 
course of the day to be sent another stage down the 
line. Others like him gradually won ease and some 
relief from their suffering. But others declined and 
died. 

The N.C.O. in charge of the mortuary counted his 
coffins. 

Late the same evening I walked again in the field 
with the single poplar. Our squad had been relieved 
at the C.C.S., and I had found my way to the field 
almost without choice. 

The same cuckoo flowers were older by a summer 
day. The grasses were a day nearer hay-time. But 
whatever form death took for them it troubled them 
not. There was no sign but the same sign of joy in 
a rich process of life. Even as I walked I began to 
forget the horror of the day. Life itself seemed to 
mean forgetfulness. Yet it was not that those events 
were unreal. They were still part of me, part of my 
consciousness. 

Compensation was the word, not forgetfulness, I 
thought. 

Elysian fields was an idea of our ancestors for those 
who died in turmoil. And this was my Elysian field. 

My mind began to right itself like a good ship. But 
what of those other minds, those who had apparently 

139 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



gone down lost in foul seas alone ? For a moment the 
beauty of the earth darkened in a grin of mockery. 
But a voice cried, "Face it. Face that fact." 

My mind stretched out desperate arms seeking an 
idea, a link. Why should I be here in my Elysian 
field, quite naturally regaining health and strength; 
and why should not they be in theirs? 

What were those words of Sergeant Rivers? What 
was the instinctive thought that underlay them, shared 
by us both at the moment they were spoken ? I recol- 
lected it as this: that if we could by some natural 
miracle have reached them in their suffering we 
should have done so at all costs, at all risks. It was 
not only a thought: it was a desire. 

But in the perfection of Thought, in God, why not 
attribute the same desire? What if that unison is 
already achieved, most truly and most powerfully? 

"Phantoms of countless lost." 

Perhaps they are here indeed! Perhaps we have 
never been separated ! I tried with an effort to think 
away the natural forms before me, but in vain. The 
sun found my eyes. The breeze dwelt with its sweet 
persistence upon my senses, pleading for peace. It 
seemed that these familiar forms extended also into 
infinity. "Believe in us," they whispered, "and be- 
lieve that God will not abuse his own Consciousness." 

But it was only in Heaven that I recognized the full 
fact of Hell. 



140 



CHAPTER VIII 

THREE WOMEN 



'Beyond the sphere which spreads to widest space 
Now soars the sigh that my heart sends above; 
A new perception born of grieving Love 
Guideth it upward the untrodden ways. 
When it hath reached unto the end and stays, 
It sees a lady round whom splendors move 
In homage; till by the great light thereof 
Abashed the pilgrim spirit stands at gaze. 
It sees her such, that when it tells me this 
Which it hath seen, I understand it not, 
It hath a speech so subtile and so fine. 
And yet I know its voice within my thought 
Often remembereth me of Beatrice: 
So that I understand it, ladies mine." 

Vita Nuova* 



MARIE JOSEPH was a slim, demure girl whose 
head was bent like a nun's. Her shrine was her 
father's estaminet and I was her devotee. For the 
space of four days she had my active service heart. 

We had come from a land of mud, back to hard 
roads and firm turf. We arrived late one afternoon 
in a little village where the old shop windows gleamed 
invitingly, where the blacksmith's hammer was heard 
in the streets, and where a choice of several estamin- 
ets lay before us for an evening meal. On such occa- 
sions Providence guides her children. Her emissary 

141 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

was Mack, who met me in the street. He had come 
before us on the billeting party and had been in the 
place two hours, so that he already possessed all es- 
sential information. He knew the quality of the 
beer, he knew where the brigade post-office was, he 
knew the schoolmistress, he could tell you where you 
were billeted, he could tell you how near the nearest 
canteen and mess was, and much else beside. He 
desired eggs and chips himself and took me straight 
to the estaminet of Marie Joseph's father. While 
our meal was in progress Mack was relating one of 
his petites histoires philosophiques, and then it was that 
I first noticed Marie Joseph crossing the parlor, her 
whole lithe activity subdued to a glass of beer which 
she carried very carefully indeed so as not to spill one 
drop. 

There were several men in khaki in the room. 
Having delivered the glass she seemed to fade and 
melt between them and reappear as if by magic be- 
hind her counter. 

I went up to the counter and stood with others. 
When I spoke French to her she scarcely raised her 
head, but, with her hand on the beer-tap, she raised 
her brows, and suddenly uncurtained her gray eyes. 
For a moment only I felt her inscrutable gaze and then 
she continued filling the glasses. But the effect was 
startling. It was as though she had said, "You think 
me a child, but really I am older even than you." 

I returned to my seat with two glasses, one for 

142 



THREE WOMEN 



Mack and one for myself. But somehow a change had 
occurred. It was as if the values of common things, 
of eggs and chips, of beer and brown walls, of men's 
hats and women's aprons, had undergone a change of 
pitch. 

Her eyes had been inquiring, contemplative, kind, 
but I thought they had also shown a kind of grave 
mockery. 

Was it so or not? 

For several evenings I had occasion to observe her. 
She seemed to have no particle of vanity. From 
habit she held in her chin, and few observed the deli- 
cacy of her features. She seemed able to make her- 
self plain or pretty at will. She moved with habitual 
gentleness but her unconscious movements were swift 
as a cat's. On one occasion one of her small sisters 
who was playing between the tables fell over the legs 
of a tall soldier. The child gave a little squeal and 
her elder sister was bending over her, after a move- 
ment round the counter almost too swift to follow. 

She was not more than seventeen, yet her address 
was perfect. In the bare parior of the estaminet she 
could cross the floor, turn or stand still suddenly in 
the center of the room with as much finesse as the most 
finished actress. 

In the daytime she braided the hair of innumerable 
small sisters. She mended, cooked, washed for them. 
One day about eleven o'clock I came across her on 
her knees in front of the estaminet, scrubbing the 

143 



FI ELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

pavement, apparently the least noticeable of little per- 
sons, dressed in a gray overall. But the evening was 
her time of recreation. She made no diflFerence in her 
attitude to the boys who filled the estaminet and her 
small sisters, except that the boys amused her more. 
It was as if the idea of us amused her. She distin- 
guished between us, overheard our remarks, and re- 
plied to our sallies, or not, as she wished. A question 
asked with the first beer might not be answered till 
the second, and then, having stood with a finger on 
the table for a fraction of a second, she would dis- 
appear suddenly. She had a dimple at the corners of 
her mouth. Her lips would remain demure, but the 
little shadow each side would deepen and her eyes 
would betray that she was laughing. 

An old man sat by the stove as a rule, smoking his 
clay pipe and interjecting remarks, but Marie's aunt, 
when she was present, filled all lulls in the conversa- 
tion with her voice. The aunt was very short and 
sturdy, and had a habit of carrying on her conversa- 
tion uninterruptedly from every room in the house in 
turn. 

Once she brought me my coffee instead of Marie, 
and I replied, "Merci, Madame." 

"Non Madame — Mamselle," said the old man at 
the stove, correcting me. I apologized to Mamselle, 
but at the same time I happened to catch sight of 
Marie. I saw that the little shadows each side of her 
mouth had stolen to her lips. . . . 

144 



THREE WOMEN 



"Madame apres la guerre," she said, and, with some 
needle-work in her fingers, gave me a look from her 
eyelids full of the gentlest but wickedest amusement. 

Poor old Madame Apres-la-Guerre, with a voice 
like wedding bells on the gramophone, could yet cook 
eggs and fry potatoes in oil, to a high degree of per- 
fection. She was very stout and energetic but tres 
aimahle, and need not have despaired of a husband 
even at her mellow age. I never fathomed Marie's 
joke. But I never fathomed Marie herself. 

She had one favorite among us — a machine-gunner. 
As soon as he entered she had observed him, and 
when he had taken his seat she was standing at his 
side. She carried him his beer with even greater 
care, and with eyes glued to the glass. 

"You are ze machine-gun boy, n'est-ce pas? You 
go pop, pop, pop," and for once I saw her throw back 
her head and laugh. 

He was a very ordinary red-cheeked fellow. He 
laughed with her and replied, "Yes, Mary — pop, pop, 
pop — bang — na pou!" 

Many others joined in the laugh, but she had 
sHpped from among us in an instant. We all treated 
her in an excellent brotherly fashion, yet quite failed 
to recognize her. But she could rebuke us without 
raising her voice. 

What was this Fragonard doing among "Boers 
drinking"? I asked myself in vain. I would imagine 
her out of her plain gray dress and in that pretty one 



145 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

the girl wears in "The Music Lesson." In imagina- 
tion I set her in the way of that sweet intoxication 
proper to her youth and beauty. I watched her in a 
ball-room, with a single bright thing in her hair, 
choosing exactly what partners she wished. I watched 
her on a summer evening at a chateau window opening 
on to steps, with a man, her match, at her side, and a 
long Louis Quinze mirror in the gloom behind her. 

Yet I knew my curiosity was in vain. 

I could never imagine those profound eyes dis- 
turbed; their purity was invincible, their wisdom all- 
sufficing. Wit, challenge, and the mind of youth, the 
alchemy of great music, the fine intelligence of sense, 
was it possible she knew all these things already? 
Was it possible she had achieved them by some mys- 
terious process, here in this estaminet, as a great 
thinker cloistered from the world may achieve experi- 
ence? If not, how was she so calm, so wise? Why 
was humanity so obviously to her a dear familiar, in- 
corrigible phenomenon to be served, yet laughed at, 
yet loved — at seventeen. 

Mystery! She moved before me as completely a 
mystery as if I had at last seen a ghost. Alas, that 
she must ever remain so! 

I never saw Ada of Enfield in my life. But one 
summer afternoon she revealed herself to us from a 
little gray heap of her own letters by no greater in> 
cantation than that of her own ill-formed hand-writ- 

146 



THREE WOMEN 



ing; and to some at least among those who perceived 
her she remains a revelation and a friend. 

Archy had been very busy one afternoon in the 
dressing-station, cleaning and tidying everything for 
which he believed himself responsible. Then he took 
a broom and labored to make the yard outside surgi- 
cally clean. During these efforts he had found the 
letters in an old tin used as a dust-bin. What had 
prompted him to rescue them, how through so many 
vicissitudes the sheets had clung together without a 
fastening of any kind, and how up to that moment 
they had survived the zeal for cleanliness of succeed- 
ing detachments occupying the dressing-station, re- 
mained a mystery. They had undoubtedly been 
dropped a month previously by a patient who had 
come to the dressing-station and gone thence down the 
medical line in an unknown condition. 

And the sad presumption soon followed that his 
condition was serious or he w^ould not have allowed the 
letters to escape him. 

Later that afternoon I heard shouts of laughter 
next door. I entered to find Archy reading something 
aloud which appeared to fill him with unholy glee. 
He began another letter as I entered. "My own dar- 
ling sweetheart," he read in a high giggling voice, and 
then dashed behind a table to avoid the assaults of 
others inquisitive as himself. Chatham alone was un- 
moved. He was cleaning the Primus stove very care- 
fully. He suffered from deafness and probably did 



147 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

not hear. Charles, who habitually wore an air of 
contempt, snorted and looked at Archy, but did not 
conceal his anxiety for him to continue. I was going 
through a list of equipment. One or two other men 
were in the room, but none of us could avoid listen- 
ing to Archy *s excited voice even if we had wished. 
Bursts of laughter followed certain passages, and 
jokes and comments flowed freely. 

Chatham looked up. "What is he reading?" he 
said to me in his slightly sepulchral voice. 

"Love letters," I said. 

Just then a hush came, in which Archy read, "I 
treasure my dear little ring, and in wearing it always 
think of him the giver." 

Immediately there was a roar of laughter tailing off 
into exclamations "Chrikyl" "My frittered Auntl" 
"Strike me blindo!" 

"What a shame," said Chatham, and bent again 
over the Primus stove. "Why don't I stop it?" I 
asked myself. "I'm not afraid to do so. What then? 
Have I lost all nice feelings?" 

Archy continued. He almost collapsed in giggling, 
but recovered himself and stretched his arm out dra- 
matically. He read, "I say, dear, you mustn't get cry- 
ing; I can't bear to think of you like that, though 
I should be the same. Leave the tears to us, dearie." 

But the tumult that followed was less noisy. There 
seemed half-heartedness and a note of shame in it. I 
felt a moment of rage. 

148 



THREE WOMEN 



"What infernal sentimental rubbish," I said aloud. 

But Archy continued remorselessly. Like a true 
conjuror, he was not disturbed in the least by the 
spells that began to grasp his audience. He continued 
to laugh mischievously, ignoring the silence that be- 
gan to settle upon us, for to those who listened it was 
no longer merely food for laughter. We stood or sat 
round in different attitudes, but all in concentrated 
attention. 

And gradually the mocking died away. 

For what appeared before us in the littered room 
was nothing less than the personality of the girl her- 
self revealed by herself with as sure a touch as that 
of any master of the human heart. 

Her unselfishness, her vanity, her timidity in small 
things, her courage in great, her simplicity and her 
instinctive wisdom, her passionate affection and her 
craving for any trifle in return, the sincerity of her 
little confessions, her failure to be resigned in separa- 
tion, her profound tenderness, were all there to be 
recognized by each one of us who had remained a 
human being. 

Oh! they were nothing but the common bundle of 
wares with which the ordinary young woman attracts 
the ordinary young man. But we were ordinary 
young men isolated from home. Our hearts were 
rapidly hardening in the life we led; and now the 
singular familiarity and completeness of the vision 
before us caused something of a ferment within. 



I4Q 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

There was everything we knew in it — ^the fortune- 
teller's nonsense, the sentimental quotation, the lines 
from the music-hall song. There were the characters 
we knew, her girl friends gossiping, her father with 
the big tea-cup for himself, her mother in the back- 
ground to whom she confided much but not all, the 
other men to whom she now wrote no more, and the 
other woman. 

A situation, familiar also, had arisen between her- 
self and her lover, and she had dealt with it straight- 
forwardly with instinctive cleverness, but with ter- 
rible anxiety. In the vision we had of her, our minds 
regained awhile the purity of hers : but with the purity 
the pain also. For everywhere she showed the sad 
half-knowledge that she was more sensitive than her 
lover and therefore capable of the greater suffering. 
We recognized in our own hearts that she had reasons 
for her fear. She described herself "true as steel." 
We knew that she was so. 

It was as if she had shown herself to us by a ges- 
ture of her whole being. All the features of her mind 
were before us. What wonder if we almost per- 
ceived her physically. Once, indeed, it seemed that 
a woman in very truth had entered the room. It 
seemed as if she stood opposite to Archy and tried to 
plead against his reading. 

But by then we could no more have stopped him 
than the thirsty can stop drinking. 

When he finished there was silence. Then Charles, 

ISO 



THREE WOMEN 



usually the fiercest and most misanthropic of youths, 
said quietly, "I wish I had a girl who'd write to me 
like that." 

Chatham had risen. He went over to Archy, who 
was still chuckling to himself, and said, "Give them 
to me." Archy gave them up, and he put them in his 
pocket. 

"He's goin' off alone with them. He wants them 
himself," jeered Archy, and ran out. 

Next day Chatham and I were sitting alone together 
under an apple tree watching a German aeroplane. 
Every one said it was a German, though it was so 
tiny a speck that it was only just discernible in the 
sky. "There's a gunner over the road," I said, "who 
says he can always tell a Hun aeroplane by its volup- 
tuous flight. Does that look voluptuous ?" But Chat- 
ham, instead of replying, began feeling in his pockets. 
"What about these letters ?" he said. "They're damned 
odd ; I hardly know what to make of them." 
"I don't, either." 

"Of course they're crude, sentimental, ill-written— 
a shop girl's, I suppose. But I can't get away from 
them. Forgive me if I talk of myself." 

Chatham was the mildest of egoists. He was the 
most truly unselfish man I had ever met. In the 
course of two years I had never noticed him perform 
a single act to benefit himself alone, and he was con- 
tinually doing things for other people. He was a man 

151 



FIELDS AN D BATTLEFIELDS 

of means, and education. He hobnobbed and drank 
with men of every standing in the ambulance and 
spent his money on any one he happened to be with 
at the time. His manner to all was the same, con- 
siderate and courteous even to the point of the deferen- 
tial. But though he was truly unselfish his conversa- 
tion was always about himself. Yet it was interesting, 
for though he was not apparently reserved, he never be- 
came stale or over-famiHar, and remained for most of 
us something of a mystery. 

Now as he spoke in the detached manner of the 
deaf, he bent his head occasionally; or would rise 
from his seat under the apple tree, walk to and fro 
and sit down again abruptly. 

"Of course, Fm not saying they're a human docu- 
ment or anything of that sort, but they're a kind of 
milestone that shows me how far I am from — from 
home. 

"I didn't hear them being ready by Archy — not 
much of them — Fm a bit deaf; but the way all the 
fellows quieted down was remarkable, eh? What 
I mean to say, I'm not a callous sort of fellow, and 
I'll tell you this — taking leave of his wife is the 
hardest thing a man has to do in this war — don't you 
agree — what ? 

"Fm not a callous sort of fellow, and my wife and 
I have asked a good deal from each other. Two 
months ago I would have said we were ideally happy. 
But in this sort of life — ^you know— one gets covered 

152 



THREE WOMEN 



up. As if out here we were all walking about under 
the same big blanket. Of course one writes and re- 
ceives letters from home regularly — but there's the 
trouble — letters are the trouble. 

"What I mean to say is I can't write affectionately 
to her if I'm not feeling it at the moment. And one 
seems to feel less and less, to become a mere machine. 
. . . Oh, I know it's all been said a dozen times." 

"It's all part of the game," I said. 

Chatham did not hear, and went on as if to himself : 

"And the worst of it was I was beginning not to 
mind very much. When her letters came I read them 
sternly, cursed the war, and wrote back priggishly." 

He suddenly turned to me with a queer smile. 

"You see from one point of view it's really rather 
interesting." 

"What is?" 

"Why this — that in spite of all we believe to the 
contrary; in spite of love, faithfulness, vows and the 
rest — separation can separate. We knew it might for 
others, but we did not believe it for ourselves. We 
had been very close partners. You know the relation- 
ship, perhaps. How could we not believe in each 
other? But we were mistaken. 

"No more intimacy now. I am free — really free. 
As if I had never loved. We used to talk about be- 
ing independent of each other, but we never meant 
much by it. Well, we are independent now. She has 
her war-work at home and I have my work. The 



lii.^ 



FIELDS A ND BATTLEFIELDS 

uses of our lives are unchanged. Only that we have 
a recollection of happiness, we might as well never 
have met. 

"Sometimes"—he hesitated — "it's as if she were 
dead. 

"IVe been unhappy, but I can't remain so for long. 
, . . Yet I'm not a callous sort of fellow. . . . 

"But what if she has been unhappy for a long 
time without my knowing it. I seem to see it now in 
her last letters, though I didn't yesterday. She does 
not like to say so. She is rather puritanical. She 
wants to save me all she can, so she becomes more and 
more reserved." 

"Reserve's a bloody tomb." 

"It's a kind of conspiracy to save each other pain. 
And what comes of it? Our letters become restrained. 
. . . We become less and less real to each other, and 
that hurts he?- more than ever." 

He nov/ pulled out the gray bundle of letters which 
he had rescued from Archy the day before. 

"I can see it now," he said, "these letters have given 
me a clue. Read them. Look there." 

He pointed with the mouthpiece of his pipe to one 
of the dirty pages, and I read — 

"/ like it when you call me nice sweet names." 

At that moment a seventy-pounder in the field be- 
hind us gave out its hideous double crack and the shell 

154 



THREE WOMEN 



shrieked over our heads into the distance. I winced. 

"Can it really be true ?" I said, and Chatham divined 
my question. 

"Ah," he replied, "you, too, have strayed far. That 
is what I have been asking myself since yesterday." 

"They like it when we " 

We looked at each other in wonder. 

"I think it's true," he said; "this girl writes what 
my wife and yours would like to write but dare not. 
Read the letters again. It's sacrilege, but still. . . . 
That sentence is but one instance of many. Every- 
where she expresses nothing less than the whole of 
herself. It is not art or literature — it is simply the 
truth. And the odd thing is she reminds me of my 
wife." 

I read the letters through while Chatham walked 
up and down. There were one or two I had not heard 
the day before. 

As I read a grasshopper made a small noise in the 
long grass. When I had finished I laid the letters on 
the grass beside me. 

"She reminds me of mine, too," I said. 

"I think I'll write to my wife at once," said Chat- 
ham. 

"I think I'll write to mine, too," I said. 

Chatham stooped and picked up the heap of letters 
from the grass and put them in his pocket. Then 
we went off in different directions. 

When I write of Soeur Seline I am persuaded I 

iSS 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

should approach my subject in prayer, compose on 
my knees. Do not accuse me of fancies. To-day we 
are specially in need of a higher journalism where 
Truth is more obviously the end of research in im- 
pressions and personal opinions more obviously but 
contributions to that end. The vast phenomena of 
modern life, so tempting to explore, need more than 
ever the spirit of scholarship and less than ever the 
spirit of mere adventure. He who without religion 
would be a scholar of men and women must forfeit 
one of the lamps provided for him and leave so fair 
a missal as Soeur Seline unopened, unread. 

As a rule personality obtrudes itself and character 
remains hidden. But with Soeur Seline the reverse 
was the case. Her personality was elusive. She was 
as shy as a girl of sixteen. She was by nature one 
of those women who look much in a man's face and 
reflect his expression in her own. But she had chosen 
long ago to look upon the face of the Master of Life 
and held once for all a reflection of Him. 

She lived in an Asile with other nuns of her sister- 
hood engaged in a life of pure service. Their services 
were known far and wide, for the insane of all na- 
tionalities were supported here. When the Germans 
entered Bailleul in 191 4 they set a guard on the gates 
and no molestation was permitted. The sisters con- 
tinued their quiet ministrations, services were held as 
usual night and day in the chapel, the inmates strolled 
under leafy trees conscious of no delusions beyond 

156 



THREE WOMEN 



their own. The Asile is of vast extent. Lawns and 
borders, avenues of trees and gardens are enclosed 
within its grounds. Elms and beeches have over- 
topped the tall mansard roofs, and in their branches 
thrushes, old in song, repeat their vespers with the 
chapel bell. 

Soeur Seline was in charge of the laundry ; a stately 
building that appeared to have a park for a drying- 
ground behind it. I visited her first in the company of 
a friend. We knocked at the big door, each of us 
with a homely bundle under his arm. She not only 
washed but ironed and mended for soldiers, and would 
not take payment. I was not prepared for such a 
hlanchisseuse. She stood listening to us with infinite 
calm attention as we spoke. A pretty dark-haired 
girl — a Belgian refugee — stood beside her, watchfully, 
hand on hip; the old women with blue aprons who 
worked in the la,undry glanced at us over their shoul- 
ders, the machinery made a spinning noise in the air: 
but all was insignificant beside this one woman's face, 
and its revelation of quite other facts. She took us 
into her own workroom, where the noise of machinery 
could still be heard. She wished to show us her 
creche. It was a few weeks after Christmas, and she 
had made a big creche in the chapel with real straw 
in it, but this smaller one was for the laundry **chil- 
dren." It was a little toy stable and manger with 
w^ooden figures and woolly lambs and a doll baby. 
When the "children" in the laundry were tired of 



157 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



their work they could hobble in here and put the wool- 
ly lambs and the shepherds into different positions, but 
they were shy of touching the figure of the Madonna 
or the doll child. 

We crossed the grass to the chapel door. Soeur Se- 
line was to show us the chapel. The sacristan, a very 
old sister, bent with obeisance, and carrying a bunch 
of huge keys, opened the door for us from the inside. 
The chapel was remarkable for its unusual severity 
and absence of decoration. The stations of the cross 
were small paintings on copper fixed to the wall. 
There were no aisles. The tall lancet windows gave a 
subdued light through their stained glass. The sacred 
lamp burned before the simplest of altars. 

I looked carefully at one of the stations of the cross. 
Soeur Seline, with her hands before her, looked up at 
it too. It was the scene in which Christ, toiling with 
His cross, stopped to wipe His face with the handker- 
chief. I asked : "Who was it who gave Him the hand- 
kerchief?" "Saint Veronica," said Soeur Seline. 

Before another station, one representing the Cruci- 
fixion, I asked: "Who was the Roman soldier, ord- 
ered to thrust the spear?" "Saint Longine," said 
Soeur Seline. "Is it true," I asked, "that he under- 
stood afterwards what he had done?" "It is true," 
said Soeur Seline. "He was forgiven; he became 
Christian." 

In one of the transepts she drew our attention to a 
window representing her favorite saint. But she her- 

is8 



THREE WOMEN 



self looked more saintly. She considered it quite 
natural that religion should interest us. She answered 
our questions as she would those of an inquisitive 
child : and as she stood looking upwards under the win- 
dow it was as if she was indeed our elder sister. 

One thing about her puzzled me. There was some- 
thing in her regard that struck me as familiar. Some 
quality I had seen elsewhere; but where? Finally I 
remembered. That look of patience I knew in some 
soldiers who had grown old in discipline. Yes, old 
Sergeant S. looked like that sometimes — he who be- 
lieved he would die next time he went over the para- 
pet. 

I was not alone in yielding to Soeur Seline*s influ- 
ence. Others, both men and N.C.O.s, acknowledged 
it in different ways. To a healthy individual such 
mastery as hers in any region is interesting. She was 
of a type fairly common in Catholic countries, but un- 
familiar to the average town-bred Englishman. She 
had that in her face that could be recognized as beauty 
— that is to say, as that which attracts. I have often 
thought how powerful, how popular a truly spiritual 
appeal can be. It is not always remembered how near 
Christ was to triumph on the day of His entry into 
Jerusalem. It was as an individual of supreme spiri- 
tual beauty that she attracted us. I believe it true to 
say that we visited the laundry chiefly to see her. But 
being English, we scarcely admitted it even to our- 
selves. I had one friend who in the region of the 



139 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

> — ■ 

mind was possessed of devils. He had a genius for 
soiling the most sacred subjects. I remember experi- 
encing something like a shock on discovering that he 
knew Soeur Seline, and had known her for some time. 
But he spoke a few words of simple admiration for 
her such as I had seldom heard from him, and then 
remained silent. Both his words and his unusual 
silence impressed me. 

Sceur Seline was good and holy, and austere unlike 
ourselves, but she had a simple heart like ourselves, 
and that was one of the reasons of her appeal. This 
simplicity is a characteristic of Christianity found spe- 
cially in Christ Himself, but lost sight of continually 
because it is the habit of priests to mistake simplicity 
for stupidity. It is characteristic of this simplicity to 
recognize at once the mastery of the Spirit when 
brought into contact with it — a recognition not pri- 
marily of its own weakness, but of its own ignorance. 
The desire for knowledge, for leadership, is implied. 
It is interesting that the simple imagery of the Roman 
Church has its effects on ill-nourished English Protes- 
tants. I know one personally, a sergeant, who was 
led to think much on religion by the number of cruci- 
fixes he saw, and who was confirmed while on active 
service that he might take communion. The desire for 
a true spiritual lead is here manifested; it is mani- 
fested among us over and over again. The simple 
heart has a peculiar discrimination of values in the 
matter of the Spirit arising out of its own simplicity. 

i6o 



THREE WOMEN 



We had already separated in our minds army chap- 
lains, church parades, prayers for the Allies, from 
that Spirit. It is manifested in that strange, shy 
response among men of all kinds wherever the spirit 
of Christ is truly shown, consciously or unconsciously. 

The religious inheritance of a Catholic country, 
touching all departments of life, is specially visible 
in Flanders. Soeur Seline, herself a priestess, filled 
every image with the Spirit of her Faith and taught 
by the most powerful means. 

It was the simplest of experiences to stand with her 
before a crude picture of Christ's labor, and learn 
from her the name of the woman who at such an hour 
was His friend. It was the simplest of experiences 
to see the portrait of the man who gave Christ His 
death-wound, to see that he was a soldier, to learn 
from her that he repented afterwards, that he was 
forgiven and became a Christian. The simplest of 
experiences, but in the presence of her to whom such 
imagery- was truth, one of the most profound. 



i6i 



CHAPTER IX 

THE HIGHWAY 

**Here knights have clattered past, here pikemen proud, 
Here fainting pilgrims eastward not a few. 
And shy, shade-lingering lovers, two and two, 
And nuns and novices in saintly crowd. 
Here Louis Bien-aime emblazoned loud. 
And here have high-famed conscripts carried through . 
Scarred standards to their doom at Waterloo, 
And all have hoped and vanished into shroud. 

And now on Time's top wave come laboring these. 
With new beliefs, new hopes, new Love, new Trust: 
Still tramp the long battalions through the dust. 
And still from yon half-circle of old trees — 
High whispering chancel that the night wind calms-w 
Still Christ on Calvary holds out His arms." 

WE were marching through the golden haze of a 
late afternoon in early summer. Of all the trav- 
ellers before us on this High^ray, Louis Bien-aime ap- 
pealed to me with greater force than those others 
named above. Perhaps because his state was in every 
way the opposite of our own. 

I had always understood from historical writers 
that he went to war in a C-spring travelling-coach of 
enormous size, drawn by eight horses trained to a 
rhythmic step; that he was accompanied by beaucoup 

162 



THE HIGHWAY 



beautiful ladies, in coaches of less magnificence, with 
their pet monkeys, cockatoos and spaniels inside, and 
footmen, scarlet lacqueys and chamber-women on the 
box outside; that he always took with him portable 
theaters and opera-ihouses, with hosts of actors and 
actresses, whereby to while away the notorious tedium 
between victories; and that, finally, he won his war 
in a reasonable time, with no trouble and much glory 
to himself, and having done so, that he turned about, 
with the whole procession at his heels, and returned 
home as quickly as possible. 

Certainly Louis's methods, his whole conception of 
campaigning were different to mine or to any of my 
immediate friends. He had known nothing, for in- 
stance, of an iron-ration bag containing a heavy 
bully-beef tin that dangles from your belt and gives 
you a blow on the thigh with every step. Also if he 
had forgotten a gray flannel shirt sent to the wash at 
the last camp, and suddenly remembered it en route, 
he could order a batman with a wave of his hand to 
ride back and fetch it. 

How differently had the fates treated him. 

Yet, though I was envious, I was not jealous of him 
at six o'clock that summer evening. I should have 
been sorry, for instance, if Mack had begun to demon- 
strate to me that such a conception as Louis could 
never really have existed. Mack had a scientific mind. 
He dealt with life a trifle coldly. Ah me! This 
Reality of which certain steely persons are so sure! 



163 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

It was never more elusive than on the march, when 
earth passed irrationally under my feet and time was 
only what was past. 

No, if we are but what we are, we will not grudge 
Louis that God of Active Service, his being what 
he so superlatively was. On the contrary, such is our 
nature, that if Louis Bien-aime had never existed, il 
faudra Venventer on the march. 

At that moment Little Harry, who marched next 
me, broke my train of thought by bumping into me. 
He said it was the fault of the man on the other side 
of him who bumped into him. Conversation began. 
Harry said "It seems a bit funny marching along like 
this and not knowing where I'm going. I'm not used 
to it." "You ought to be getting used to it by now," 
said some one behind who had overheard ; but Harry 
was not ruffled. 

"Do you believe in a Hereafter?" he continued. 

"I don't know," I replied ; "I'm wondering if I be- 
lieve in a Now-at-present. If you could believe in 
this you could easily believe in anything. Why the 
hell is Private Lee always out of step?" 

"He's not out of step," said Sparky from the four 
in front. 

"Then why does he always go up when every one 
else goes down, and down when every one else goes 
up?" 

"All Jews do," said Sparky. 

The column had been cheerful. Some one sang 

164 



THE HIGHWAY 



half a song, but it was not taken up. We were re- 
lapsing into the sulkiness that comes in the beginning 
of a march, after the first swing is over and before 
you have reached your second wind. At a curve 
in the road we could see the baggage waggons of an- 
other column ahead of us, trailing along through the 
dust. One of the drivers turned and shouted some- 
thing to the waggon behind him. Was it a halt? or 
only an A.S.C. joke? No, no halt yet. All our offi- 
cers were on horseback. They looked cool and com- 
fortable. They held their riding-whips at arms' length 
with the butt on their hips. "How silly of them!" I 
thought. "The Colonel started it and now they all do 
it." But the Colonel was not on horseback after all. 
His batman was leading his horse, and he was march- 
ing gaily ahead, swinging his cane and showing off his 
beer-brown gaiters. It was a pleasure to see him 
stepping it with ourselves. The sight roused me a 
moment. Reggie, our agricultural expert, was in the 
four in front. He never spoke much on the march, 
but always to the point. I asked him what was the 
French crop we could see above the low hedge on our 
right. Reggie looked at it sideways. 

"Some blinkin' grass." Silence. . . . 

It was no use, we were becoming submerged, 
chained to the heels of the man in front. I sank like- 
wise. . . . 

"Keep that blank file clear," said Big Harry from 
behind. It was all very well for him, he carried 



165 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

■ ... '* 

raisins to eat on occasions like these. "Close in to 
the right/' he shouted again, and a large gray staff 
car came up on our left and passed us with a hum- 
ming sound. An impression was left of a red and 
gold cap, an eyeglass, and a benevolent stare. Then a 
veil of dust rose from the road. . . . 

"Oh for a deep and dewey spring 
With runlets cool to bathe and drink. 
And a great meadow blossoming." 

"Halt and fall out on the right of the road," we 
heard far ahead; but still marched on. The divine 
words were repeated nearer at hand "Halt and fall 
out on the right of the road." We stopped suddenly 
and there was a rush for the bank. 

This was but the first halt. We were to march all 
night and we had been packing all the day. There 
was need to husband our strength. I stood wearily 
m the road a moment. It was less fatiguing than 
to fight for a seat on the bank. But the cheerful 
voice of Lynwood called out: "Here's a seat, Ser- 
geant." 

Lynwood was an accomplished nursing orderly, 
and his conversation was one of his accomplishments. 
He was in a sweet, agreeable humor, and began his 
healing arts upon me almost before I had sunk on to 
a patch of scraggy grass beside him. They consisted 
chiefly in an invincible friendliness. Now he talked 
quietly and humorously and drew me with him away 

i66 



THE HIGHWAY 



to his home in the north of England. He had evi- 
dently been there in thought for some time past, for 
he spoke with concentration. The spell of the march 
was upon him, too, but he seemed to know how to 
use it for his own purposes. 

As we sat on the bank the weight of ourselves and 
our packs caused us to slip downwards uncomfort- 
ably, so that we had frequently to jerk ourselves a 
little higher, and again a little higher, in order not to 
slip down into the ditch below us. 

"... Yes, we used to form a party of a Satur- 
day afternoon and go for expeditions . . . geo- 
logical expeditions. We'd go perhaps to Chapel Frith, 
perhaps a forty-minute ride out of Manchester. An 
hour by a slow train. It's fine country out there. Fine 
hills and all. And we'd always have a right proper 
tea ordered beforehand wherever it might be we were 
going to finish up — see. Chapel Frith's got two sta- 
tions — the Midland and the London Northwest. Well, 
say we went to the Midland station; no — well, say 
we went to the London Northwest. Eh, that's a fine 
expedition. Well, we'd go to Chapel-Frith-London- 
North- West, London Road station out of Manchester, 
and perhaps take us lunch, to eat in the train. Then 
we'd walk from there over to Buxton. Or, say 
across into Edale, have tea there and take the train 
back. . . . 

"My friend always arranged it all. He was a cham- 
pion geologist. He'd point us out the formation as 



167 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

we went. Or if we came to an escarpment, he*d tell 
us how it come to be there. You know. He used 
to make it proper interesting. Of course — mind — it 
were a privilege for me to be with him. . . . He 
was a man of education. And we had ladies with us 
and all. And we always ended up with a right proper 
tea, Sergeant — tea, bread-and-butter, eggs, jam . . . 
sweetcake. ..." 

"Fall in," said a voice, and the command was re- 
peated down the road. A whistle blew. 

Without comment Lynwood and I separated, and 
never continued that particular conversation. 

When we had started again I continued to think 
of Lynwood and his friends for a space of several 
hundred yards. 

Presently we turned a corner and entered a large 
village, where an audience waited for us. Here was 
a change of mood. 

We raised our heads and swung our arms ; and the 
section behind began a song with a meaning. 

Now we were going to be admired. The game we 
were preparing to play was an old game, but worth 
playing. On active service who shall not excuse us 
for playing it. 

The dust had subsided and the houses were freshly 
lit by the setting sun. Men and women stood at their 
doors; hands were waved and children ran shouting 
alongside of us. 

All at once there was a stir at the head of the 

i68 



THE HIGHWAY 



section, a cat-call, and cries of "Ah!" An officer 
riding in front looked behind him, and we followed 
his gaze. A painted young woman stood alone on a 
doorstep at the other side of the road. Her skirt 
was short, her hands were on her hips, and she held 
herself proudly and indolently. But her head was 
full of youth and well set on her shoulders. She was 
good to look upon. She seemed for a moment to be 
confronting our animal eyes; and as she stood there, 
returned our stare with superb defiance. 

Then deliberately she made a movement with her 
ankle. 

It was a challenge, and we yelled in answer. But 
there sprang into her face on the moment such a look 
of passion and contempt that the licentious gesture 
itself seemed transformed into an act of spurning. 

Here was not admiration. If it was anything, it 
was humiliation. 

The little drama was over in a moment, but it was 
so startling a revelation: so obviously the act of an 
enemy, and of one victorious for a moment, that it 
appeared to me the starting-point of something to fol- 
low. 

The old working women, who had seen the incident, 
grinned. Others, as we passed them, stood with fold- 
ed arms and appeared to watch us with complacence. 
They seemed to rejoice in our toil. 

The men, their husbands, home from the fields or 
the workshop, who stood smoking, hands in pockets. 



169 



FIELDS AND BATTL E F I E L D S 

or who were digging quietly in their gardens; — they 
were our friends. But the women, all women, were 
our enemies. They seemed to say to us, as they 
wagged their heads and shrugged their shoulders : — 

"Your turn has come now, and about time, too. 
. . . Young men have had the world their own way 
for long enough. Now you have some real hard work 
for the first time in your lives, like as not, and a fine 
fuss you make of it, with no women to look after you 
when the day is over. . . . 

"Yes, you want us to admire you with your drums 
and your buttons and your proud ways. You think 
that is real grinding work. But don't your meals come 
regular, meat twice a day, and no one to fend for but 
yourselves. ..." 

The column was now in a rhythmic swing. We had 
left the village behind. But my pack seemed to weigh 
upon me with every step, and I experienced a short 
period of extreme fatigue. My mind danced in a 
lunatic maze and I thought of hideous things, but 
seemed always to return to the vision of a working 
woman's large wrinkled face, with eyes so far apart 
I couldn't see them. 

"Yes," a voice continued in my ear, "you've had 
it your own way so far and a pretty mess you've made 
of it. . . . 

"And now you've got to clear up the mess, you may 
learn what work really means. Your turn to sweat. 
You've to work for us now. You've to protect us and 

170 



THE HIGHWAY 



our children. . . . It's our turn to be looked after 
now. ..." 

"Infernal hag!" I cried. "Is this the gratitude we 
get for our services? To have our most sacred in- 
stincts scorned; our poor passions exposed and flung 
at us in the street as that young whore did just now. 
Are our drum and polished buttons anything com- 
pared to your gigantic vanity? . . . Women, mon- 
sters of materialism you make your motherhood the 
ultimate excuse for standing armies, for wars and for 
every abomination on earth; you give your sons and 
husbands to feed them, and call it your sacri- 
fice. ..." 

The golden haze had now gone gray in the east and 
deepened to red in the west, but the air was heavy. 
The man in front of me was out of step. He swore 
he was right by the marker at the head of the column 
and that every one else was wrong. I touched his heel 
with the toe of my boot, but still he would not change. 
I felt myself sink again. The blind mouth hissed in 
my ear — 

"That young woman on the step was my daughter ; 
but who made her a whore? Fool. . . .In this war 
you are our enemies.'* 

"Ludicrous argument," I replied, "and used against 
us once too often. Are young women so pure that they 
deserve both a new freedom and an old chivalry! It 
is much to your advantage nowadays that the men 
are always to blame. We give you freedom and you 



171 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

use it to tempt us; we protect you in child-bearing 
and you forget us for the children; we march to de- 
fend your honor and you are false to us at home, and 
now in our very labor you scorn us. . . . 

"I will tell you why, too. You are jealous of us! 

"The tables are turned. Granted. You see the 
world of men, the world of young men caught in a 
toil that will subdue them. They will be aged, as 
some of you are aged, before they are thirty. But 
you are jealous because even now we are your mas- 
ters. We are slaves in body, but unchained in mind. 
Our labors are not for children to protect us, but for 
children with wings, for the liberties of the world. 
We elude you still while you are still submerged in 
the gross world you are so concerned to perpetuate." 

I expected a parting shot in reply, but, raising my 
head, I became conscious of a change. The man in 
front of me was in step again. A cool breeze had 
arisen. Some one in front was singing a pleasant 
song to himself. 

When the voice replied again it seemed no longer 
the voice of a temptress, but came remote on the 
breeze with a kind of wail — 

"Then why do you cry for us when you are dying 
as you did when you were newly-born?" 

It was not the kind of last word I had expected. 
I turned away from the thought, shifted my pack 
into an easier position, and marched jauntily like a 
schoolboy. "After all, why should I care. We do 

172 



THE HIGHWAY 



very well without them. We don't want them/' I 
whispered to myself rather shamefacedly. 

I tried to turn my back on them all. "Men for me," 
I thought. 

With an indescribable thrill I remembered a piece 
of chocolate in my pocket. I felt for it and ate it 
with relish. . . . Before us now the way was dark. 
The road, so populous in daytime, became silent ex- 
cept for our feet. We were entering the night. 

For a while we marched with the flare lights of the 
front on our left rising and falling in a wide arc as 
far as the eye could reach. In the gloom a child, 
peeping from a cottage window, could have seen or- 
derly lines of dark figures passing with humps on 
their shoulders, and each with a white bag bobbing 
at his back. 

A warm glow of light lay on the road ahead. Each 
section of four coming abreast of it looked eagerly to 
its source on the right of the road; and from behind 
we could see the light on mens' faces. We looked in 
our turn. It was a little shrine lit by two candles. 
From behind a barred doorway an altar was plainly 
visible for a moment, with an image of a madonna on 
it and a vase of flowers. For the fraction of a second 
it was present to us, a friendly pious light; then it 
was gone to mingle with all the other past things be- 
hind our backs. 

Presently we came to a darkened house. On its 
black window-panes the reflected lights of the sky 



173 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

danced dismally. By now all good people were in bed. 
Then we came to another house. A footpath began 
beside us and a blind lamp-post and other urban signs 
appeared. Dogs barked defiantly at us from back- 
yards. 

By midnight we found ourselves in the center of a 
sleeping town which dimly impressed us as being of 
enormous size. A large gothic church loomed over 
us, towering out of sight. 

"What place was this?" we asked, but no one knew. 

Some one began to whistle the Marseillaise. Others 
took it up, and the thin inflammatory sound swayed 
above our tramping feet. 

An attic window was thrown open and a night- 
capped head appeared. Then another, and another. 
They waved to us and cheered sleepily. 

"Les Anglais qui chantent La Marseillaise." 

It was the tune that had drawn them from their 
beds. 

We waved back and shouted to them in reply. In 
the market square a halt was called, but we remained 
standing in our fours. 

A large street lamp remained alight in the center 
of the market square, and beneath it we could see 
other battalions filing past, each man with shadows 
for eyes. We continued to whistle the Marseillaise, 
handing it on to them like a torch of sound. Their 
feet laid hold of it and then their mouths. Company 
after company passed. The night-capped heads con- 

174 



THE HIGHWAY 



tinued to cheer, and popped in and out of windows 
along the sides of the square. We drew ourselves up 
and felt a moment of pride. 

"Who are they?" some one asked from the four in 
front, referring to the troops passing. 

"It's the brigade," a voice replied. "We follow on, 
I expect." 

When the last file had passed by there came a rumb- 
ling sound and two cooks' carts passed under the 
light. Steam arose from them and a glow of coals 
shone behind. A man with a large fork followed. 

"Ah," said a voice in our section, "them's the things, 
them oven-carts; they follow behind and cook a bit 
of breakfast all the way." 

"And why 'aven't we got 'em— that's wot I wants 
to know?" 

"They say Lord Somebody gave them to the Jocks 
before leaving England." 

"Get in your fours there. Forward. Mind that 
blank file." 

We followed in the direction taken by the Jocks, 
fulfilling the Order of March, which says that each 
ambulance shall follow in the rear of its brigade. 

Almost immediately a great weight of sleep fell 
upon us. I stumbled over the cobbles and slipped 
against the man next me, who replied with a sleepy 
oath. 

Looking up, we saw the stems of trees on either 
hand, and pendant branches overhead. We were 



175 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

marching through a tunnel of stars and leaves. We 
had left the unknown town behind. 

At the end of the tunnel a halt was called ; and for 
an hour we slept. A ditch received me into its damp 
softness. Near by an officer's servant lay on the 
ground, with his arm in the reins of a horse, who 
came nearer me, snuffling in the grass. The snores 
of the man and the munching of the horse mingled in 
my dreams. . . . 

Very soon, in about five minutes it seemed, the 
sweetness of sleep in a ditch was changed to the agony 
of sleep on my legs. What had happened? We must 
have fallen in and resumed our march. 

I remembered Mr. Belloc had written words some- 
where to the effect that poets and soldiers had always 
some unpleasantness in their lives. What the poet's 
unpleasantness was I had forgotten, but the soldier's 
was having to get up and continue his march. How 
true that was. But does it help matters much? Are 
we enduring all this in order that the Michelets and 
the Bellocs shall write about us? Did the charge of 
the Light Brigade occur merely in order that Tenny- 
son might write his ballad and provide food for in- 
finite cheap parodies? 

No! No! Away, foul temptations. I still believe 
that a sweet rationality of existence reigns some- 
where. 

It is only Romance that has gone: that flower of 
youth which now resembles the dried cauliflower in 

176 



THE HIGHWAY 



my vegetable ration tin. A dried cauliflower which 
will be dropped presently into the soup of life, where 
it will swell and swell and grow ugly like Sentimen- 
tality. . . . Oh, these damned cobble stones ! . . . 
Are you going mad? No, you are only enduring 
naked Time. 

I remembered how once on this same march, years 
ago, I had walked jauntily munching a piece of choco- 
late and feeling glad of being free from women. 

Now it seemed there were no women left in the 
universe. They had all been withdrawn somewhere; 
and I was sorry for it. 

In the darkness we were a world of men, brave 
men, but all intent on some incredible absurdity; all 
blind and dumb, marching together like so many cats 
relying on our whiskers; and all isolated from each 
other by Fate. By some action in the past we had 
cut ourselves off from all comfort, happiness and well- 
being. Nothing remained but the eternal labor, in 
company with others, of getting from one unknown 
place to another. The reason, if reason there was, 
lay in the moving itself. Somehow it was all really 
admirable. Every one agreed it was so; therefore it 
must be so. To move from one place to another with 
as much on your back as possible was the chief end 
of Man. . . . 

"You must believe in it. You must believe. ..." 

But my mind had slipped down into my boots. 

A gray dawn came and relieved us with a kind of 



177 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

mercy, lightening the load of sleep from our eyes. 

The country had changed. To our weariness it ap- 
peared beautiful as a land of temptations. The trees 
were taller than we had known them before and grew 
together in large mysterious groups, or stood in a 
double ring round a cool green meadow. Cows stood 
knee-deep in grass under the cherry trees, or, switch- 
ing their tails, lowed gently together, impatient for 
milking-time. Every gate gave upon a place where 
to sleep would be paradise. Through every gap in 
the hedge each meadow appeared greener, its grass 
softer and more inviting, than the one before. 

At first the farm-houses were smokeless, but after 
the hour of four, farmers and laborers stood at their 
gates blinking at us. "Pity us, pity us, pity us," our 
feet seemed to say on the hard roads. "Oh, feet of 
civilians, pity the feet of the soldiers. We have seen 
you to bed and we see you arise. You have removed 
your boots by your stoves, you have lain between 
blankets, while we have been hammering each behind 
the other eternally onwards." 

We halted for ten minutes once every hour. The 
men lay down at once in the road where they stood 
and slept heavily. 

The June morning ripened to full five o'clock glory. 
The sun crept down from the tops of the pollarded 
elms, slid down the long brown roofs of the farms and 
caught the buttercups in the grass. The full beauty 
of a rich land was revealed to us, and its beauty was 

^7& 



THE HIGHWAY 



intensified with longing. We crossed a wide canal 
bordered by tall poplars. It ran, a cool silver streak 
into the dawn as far as eye could reach. What bliss 
to shake off equipment, clothing, body itself, to leap 
and possess it in spirit, to swim and to sleep. . . . 

Once a halt occurred in a village. We lay down at 
once where we were, and slept. The milkman, with 
his cart and team of dogs, saw soldiers asleep in the 
street. He said "Bon jour," but received no reply. 

The farm wagons began to roll past us on their way 
to market filled with produce. Beside them walked 
boys and women. The work of another day had be- 
gun; but stumbling forward, we knew we had no 
part any more in the world or its work. 

Looking behind me, I saw that Big Harry was car- 
rying some one else's pack besides his own. He had 
no raisins left now, but he was as imperturbable as 
ever. "He deserves a dozen V.C.s," I thought. "I 
couldn't carry another man's pack for him, to save 
my life." 

"We must have done more than twenty miles," 
said some one. 

"It's all the fault of these killy-bloody-metres," said 
Sparky in front. 

"Armies have marched thirty miles before now and 
gone into action at the end of it," I thought. 

The battalions in front had now gone off by dif- 
ferent routes to their billets. In front of us the road 
stretched unpeopled. Surely our toil was nearing an 



179 



FIELD S AND BATTLEFIELDS 

end. But Fate had arranged that our billets were 
much further off than those of any other unit. There 
was no direct road to them, but a long winding one, 
that ended up within sight of where we had been an 
hour before. The exasperation of this was intense, 
and gradually, as more men fell behind, the step gave 
out, and after a few efforts on the part of Big Harry, 
no one made an attempt to restore it. We knew it 
was useless. Big Harry was probably the only N.C.O. 
left in the unit with any breath in him. Sergeant 
Henley the regular, who had often talked to us of 
South Africa and called this war a picnic by compari- 
son, now shuffled along gray and speechless. 

But then we learned by its absence what the step 
really meant to us. Without the rhythm of the whole 
as a narcotic in which all share, each individual be- 
comes acutely conscious of his particular effort. He 
has nothing to help him, and can never attain forget- 
fulness again. Without eyes, without ears, we la- 
bored forward, each one alone in the crowd, each one 
bearing his own infirmities with what fortitude he 
could. 

"Is it thus to be very old? . . . 

"What if we had to do it all over again • . . 
now ? . . . 

"When we do halt — will they keep us marking time 
while we right turn and cover off?" 

Half an hour later Paradise had come. 
i8o 



THE HIGHWAY 



In a certain cherry orchard, a certain old hay wagon 
lacking a wheel had slumbered in the long grass for 
several summers. A very old lean pig was wont to 
come and rub against it at an early hour in the morn- 
ing. But the pair were disturbed at six o'clock on 
that particular morning by a mob of gray-brown men 
who stumbled through the grass and fell on the ground 
in little groups. They leaned back against their packs, 
or propped themselves against the stems of the cherry 
trees. The grass was long and untrampled, except for 
the little lanes that led to where each man had fallen. 
The sun was hot, but a dappled shade prevailed. Those 
who had dropped in the sun gradually shifted until 
the trees shaded them. Then they slipped their arms 
from their packs, took off their tunics, rolled over at 
full length and slept. 

The ancient pig made off through a gap in the 
hedge. 

All day men slept. The cherry tree shadows, slip- 
ping imperceptibly round their stems, alone marked 
the hours. 

At noon I rose. The soft full dream of summer was 
too luxurious for unconsciousness. The peace fulness 
of my fellows, the abundant quiet life in field and tree, 
the humming of bees, the voice of the cuckoo, made 
me restless, and in spite of the fatigues of the night 
I had a hundred desires. I wanted to find even softer 
grass. I wanted to read Keats. I wanted to think 
quietly of home. I wanted cooler shade. I wanted 



i8i 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

to brown myself in the sun. The vision through a 
gate of yet another orchard untrod by man attracted 
me. I wandered as though sleep-walking in broad 
day, and found myself eventually at the farm-house. 

Here a woman was hanging up clothes on a line. 
First two pink garments, then a chemise de nuit, then 
an apron, then a small pair of pantaloons. . . . The 
woman nodded in a friendly way. 

A brick-lined pool of clear water stood near by. 
"Here one could shave !" I watched a hen who stood 
on the edge of the pool and drank in a ludicrous man- 
ner. 

On my way back I found another wanderer. Little 
Norton sat on a tree trunk, reading a letter. 

"Have the letters come?" 

He nodded. 

"Wait here," I said; "I'll come back.'' 

Presently we were reading our letters side by side. 
Mine was a cheerful one from home. But when I 
looked at my companion his face had the stiff look 
which I knew mccdit he was troubled. 

Norton was a little man who was almost univer- 
sally despised as being stupid. But he was not stupid ; 
he was only very slow. The time element in his 
thinking was different to other persons*. His eyes 
were always wide open and had a baffled look, as if 
the world was altogether too complex a place for him. 

I was sitting below him on the grass, with my letter 
in my hand. I was looking up at him. 

182 



THE HIGHWAY 



*'Is your letter from your wifeF'' he asked. 

"Yes." He paused and then said — 

"You can*t never understand a woman. I can't. 
Even your wife. . . .A woman or a horse . . . 
they may be faithful for years . . . and then - . . 
they'll turn and bite you." 

"I wouldn't say a woman was as bad in that way 
as a horse." 

"No," he continued sadly. "And the trouble is you 
can't understand them, but they can understand you." 

I replied rather hotly that I believed I was quite as 
intelligent as my wife. But I was sorry in a moment 
I had no consolation to offer him. He sighed heavily 
and said — 

"Of course it's no use complaining." 

The look in his brown eyes was more baffled than 
ever. 

We returned each to his lair in the orchard. 
"These people think and suffer, but are so inarticulate 
that no one knows to what conclusions they arrive," 
I thought. "He once told me he had been married 
very happily for three years and had a child. Prob- 
ably his wife is ill and will not tell him that she is so ; 
and he has heard about her from a neighbor. It often 
happens like that. They cannot express themselves in 
letters, so they say nothing about what troubles them 
most, until perhaps the time comes when a doctor 
writes instead. . . . Or, again, they are at the mercy 



183 



FIELD S AND BATTLEFIELDS 

of any other person who writes and drops a phrase 
they cannot forget. 

"Husband and wife . . . how is it the relation- 
ship survives such blankness at all? . . . He may 
have marched all last night with anxiety added to his 
load of fatigue." 

Then I remembered the evil thoughts that had as- 
sailed me the evening before, on the march. Suddenly 
the vision I then had seen, of men and women bound 
together in a hateful jealous conspiracy from which 
war alone could save them, was confronted with a 
new vision of simple men and women in a companion- 
ship of spirit capable of resisting life-long perplexi- 
ties and unknown sufferings, a vision of supreme pa- 
tience, of endurance, and a forlorn citadel in the heart 
against mysterious forces. 

This vision mingled fantastically with the dancing 
glory of the June day, with the butterflies and the 
desire of the cuckoo's song, and with the spectacle of 
the sleeping men rendered insensible through their 
utter fatigue. But I bowed in spirit to Norton. Were 
we not companions in perplexity? 



184 



CHAPTER X 

AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 



"L'armee est aveugle et muette. . . . Cest une grande 
chose que Ton meut, et qui tue; mais aussi c'est une chose 
qui souffre." — De Vigny. 



THE brigade was in the area of the heavy guns, 
waiting to go into action. It was now early morn- 
ing, and we had been waiting for a day and a night 
in very pleasant July weather, with no duty but that of 
not getting lost. If we cared to do so we could learn 
from the gunners, and also from the procedure of the 
guns themselves, that the assault had been a success. 
But we were not over inquisitive. Hearing plenty of 
lies, we cared to ask no questions, and if the authori- 
ties were not in a hurry, we were very happy sunning 
ourselves and receiving regular meals. During this 
anticlimax a friend of mine had read half a small 
volume picked up at Corby on the French Revolution. 
We sat together on an escarpment looking down the 
valley, and could see the crews of some big French 
guns. They were active men, who wore overalls like 
mechanics, and had the movements of mechanics 
rather than of soldiers. 

i8s 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"Have you ever thought," he said, "that leading 
such a Hfe as this we are in a peculiar position for 
criticising books ? In this way, that even platitudes and 
truisms can be interesting if they can be referred to 
immediate experience. Take my case now. I read of 
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. I raise my eyes from 
these pages and see those little men in blue still reply- 
ing to Brunswick's Manifesto. It's bloody interest- 
ing." 

"I felt all that at Loos," I replied. "That was my 
age of Romance. But all this is Industrialism." 

"And now," he continued, still lost in his book, 
"we are on the right side. On the side of Rousseau 
and Sieyes." 

"You think we are really fighting for those — those 
ideas?" 

"Yes. I am, anyway." 

We were silent a moment, and then I said — 

"Why have we no ideas of our own to fight for ?" 

He turned and seemed to consider my question. 

"I suppose those are universal ideas." 

"Which we arrive at a century late." 

"Perhaps we are the grand experimenters of ideas. 
The ballast of the ship." 

"But surely we are more than that now. Granted 
that we have always stood for liberty; but now we 
are more than standing, we are moving. We are 
on the side of revolution whether we will or no, on 
the side of the incalculable. And when nations move 

i86 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

they follow ideas and those who can supply them. 
Are we still to be led by French ideas, by Geneva 
ideas, by Russian ideas ? All true ideas are universal, 
but have we no great conception that is our own? 
Have we no British contribution ?" 

"I think we have one, but we are not conscious of 
it." 

"Perhaps it is time we became conscious. Perhaps 
the world is waiting." 

After which I left him to his dreams. 

I had seen a Scotch sergeant of a pioneer battalion 
sitting with some of his men below us in the valley. 
He was a friend who had once been a patient under 
our care. He was a fierce-living fellow, with a ques- 
tioning blue eye and a large pensive nose. He knew 
his native songs and poems by heart, and would con- 
tradict himself once every five minutes in any discus- 
sion. He knew also how to fight all day and dig 
trenches all night. Clambering downwards, I left my 
young friend with his book, sitting with the sun in 
his eyes, and so much spread before him for his con- 
templation. I left him with a feeling of regret as 
though he had been my younger self. 

I sat down on a patch of grass beside Sergeant X. 

"Wull," said he. 

"Well," said L 

"How are your lads?" 

"We follow the brigade." 

"You'll have your work cut out." 

187 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



"What's it going to be like . . . like Loos?" 

"Christ knows, I don't." 

After this greeting we had some discussion on the 
killing of prisoners. Sergeant X. snorted and de- 
clared if he had his way he'd kill every beggar of 
them. Then almost immediately he proclaimed that 
they were only obeying orders, and he felt as sorry 
for them as for his own lads. 

"There's a little chap in my platoon just done him- 
self in," he added. 

"Did you know him personally?" 

"Yes, he was a good hard-working lad, who might 
have got his stripe after this do. We never saw any- 
thing wrong with him till a few weeks ago when he 
came back off leave. He got funny then, and said 
he couldn't go into action any more ; said he saw dead 
bodies lying about everywhere." 

"What did you say to him?" 

"We were sorry for him. Told him not to poke 
and puzzle ; but we didn't know how bad he was. Ye 
know there are lots of fellows get queer at times and 
pull through." 

"Then one day he went to an officer and told him 
he couldn't go on killing his fellow-men." 

"What did the officer say?" I asked. 

"The officer. Christ! The officer played hell with 
him for coming up to him without an N.C.O. He 
shot himself that evening in the neck and chest. He's 
done for himself. But they interviewed him before 



i88 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 



he went down the line, and what do you think they 
gave out about him?" 

"What?" 

"That when he'd been on this last leave he'd found 
out his parents were German." 

"Do you believe it?" 

"German! No! He was no more German than 
I am ! Anyway that's what they gave out about him." 

We sat silent for a while, and then he turned his 
eye on me. 

"Just think . . . if my dad told me he was a 
German. ..." 

"What would you do?" 

"I'd shoot him." 

"But you'd be a German too," I said. 

"By God, I wouldn't !" he said fiercely. 

We sat silent for a while, each with our own 
thoughts. There was an engineers' water-tap near-by 
under which a man with his tunic off, and his grey 
shirt-sleeves rolled up, was sluicing himself with en- 
joyment. He put his red neck under the tap and the 
water ran over his neck and through his hair and 
made puddles on the ground at his feet. 

Then Sergeant X. said, "What are those chaps look- 
ing at up there?" He pointed with his finger and I 
saw a little group of our men standing round some 
object of interest. We rose from our seat, and 
strolled towards the group. I could not help think- 
ing, as we went, of the strange sequence of Fate that 

189 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

had presented this story to me at this time, a gift to 
carry on to the battlefield. 

"They're gaping at a couple of Fritzes," said Ser- 
geant X. as we drew nearer the group, and almost im- 
mediately he left me with a short word of farewell. 
But something in the position of the onlookers at- 
tracted me. I approached and found two German 
prisoners. They were the first Somme prisoners I 
had seen. 

One lay on his back on a stretcher. He was a 
young man with a thin, nervous face, high forehead 
and dark, narrow eyes. His arm lay off the stretcher, 
and he rested the back of his hand on the earth. He 
seemed to regard no-one and nothing, betrayed no 
pain, and apparently listened without interest to the 
words of his companion. The second prisoner was 
the more remarkable of the two. He crouched, half 
kneeling, half sitting, beside the stretcher, talking vol- 
ubly in a position turned towards the wounded one. 
His conversation stopped at intervals, and he would 
look upwards, turning his eyes slowly round the circle 
of British faces. Sometimes he drew with his fingers 
in the earth in front of him. There was something 
in his eyes not quite human. It was probably due to 
the fact of having endured a long period of shell-fire. 
He frequently smiled and looked happy. Both he and 
his companion were in color grey as their uniforms, 
but their eyes shone with life. 

But what was strange was that we were not the 

190 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

ordinary gaping inquisitive crowd. They were in- 
different to us, yet they had moved us. We kept 
silence while that crouching figure spoke, in his 
strange tongue, as though to himself. 

It frequently happens on active service that long 
periods of monotonous existence, every detail of which 
is forgotten, are broken by some such short memorable 
spell. We listened in a kind of awe. It was as if you 
could detect that some drama hidden from common 
sight had risen suddenly to a crisis, for the moment 
arresting all observers and expressing nakedly those 
great forces which in other channels can send an 
artist mad, or lift a theater to its feet. 

Men kept joining and leaving the group. There 
seemed to be no sentry over the two prisoners. The 
wretched, ragged, yet talkative being continued to con- 
verse and to smile to himself. I think he held us be- 
cause the result of his behavior was to express a ter- 
rible shy compassion for his wounded companion. 
He seemed to behave as an affectionate, intelligent dog 
might behave finding himself for the first time in 
human shape beside a beloved mast^. Thus he 
seemed to make use of human speech, human smiles. 

"All his buttons are gone all right," said some one. 

"He looks like Jesus Christ," said another. 

The youth on the stretcher groaned and asked for 
something in German. The crouching one looked up 
and said, "De Teau." A water-bottle was brought. 
He watched through our legs till it came. In return 

191 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



he took off his cap and with a kind of abject dignity 
handed it to one of us. It was passed round, in- 
spected, and finally replaced on his head with a pat- 
ronizing pat. 

He went on talking for some time to his friend, 
who continued to look away from him into vacancy. 

It was perhaps an hour later that I saw them again. 
The brigade had moved at last. Our brief period of 
peace had come to an end, and a party of us with 
stretchers were preparing to go forward into the un- 
known land: the land from which those two incom- 
prehensible creatures had come. 

We passed them for a moment. The prisoner who 
had lain silent had been placed in an ambulance car 
about to start. Then I caught a glimpse of the other 
as he ran forward and took a seat beside the driver. 
He looked mad and happy. The car jolted off. They 
were gone. 

We left even the thought of them behind. The 
threads of our lives had crossed, unaccountably linked, 
and diverged again. But we were soon to make 
hideous discoveries of the land they had come from. 
We were walking in file carrying stretchers, and 
haversacks filled with dressings. The dressing-station 
where we had camped that night was the last place 
where lint, wool or bandages could be supplied. We 
followed an old railway line up a shallow valley, and 
presently left behind us the last trees and bushes wear- 
ing leaves. At the same time shell holes increased in 

192 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLE FIELD 

number. I had known this valley and railway line a 
few weeks before, but then we were down in the 
trenches peeping out at risk, making maps in a laby- 
rinth. Now we walked forward seeing all things. First 
we came to what had been our front line trenches, 
the frontier of France for eighteen months and more. 
A hundred yards ahead was what had been the fron- 
tier of Germany, but was so no longer. We halted 
here for a while. The morning had ripened into a 
heavy leaden forenoon. The atmosphere seemed to 
suggest that the gigantic storm, that had but lately 
finished its wreckage here, had left a brooding swell. 
As we stood the guns were silent. There was silence 
and the mute witness of the dead. The earth was 
hideous, eyeless, burnt blind. In our forsaken 
trenches the rats reigned supreme. 

Presently we continued our way, still following the 
railway line across that hundred yards that had once 
been No Man's Land, dividing the opposites of Europe. 
We had already passed brown corpses, but here al- 
most immediately the grey corpses began to appear. 
How can I describe this stretch of earth, at that mo- 
ment almost untouched by the wheels and hoofs of 
our advance ? For so many months it had been known 
to men only by night. By day the corpses on their 
backs, hummed over by bullets, had faced the sky 
alone. But every sundown the place had stolen into 
ghoulish life. The cramped snipers, the crawling pa- 
trols, the listeners shivering at their posts had all been 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

here, had pressed through this grass, had mistaken the 
rustling of these bushes for the breathing of an en- 
emy. I could mark no insect, no bird anywhere. The 
rank brown tangled grass, the thistles, the hideous 
growths of barbed wire holding human remains like 
flies in spiders* webs, were all part of an underworld 
unfamiliar to a creature still blessed with the sweet 
union of soul and body. I longed for a cleansing wind 
to blow away a sense of gross mysticism, of adultery 
between the Seen and the Unseen. The place seemed 
ghost-ridden in broad day. We found German dead 
far out in No Man's Land. They had doubtless crawled 
further and further away from the terrible and in- 
creasing surf of shells that pervaded their own lines 
for days before the attack. But reaching the German 
firing-trench, there was no lack either of our own 
dead or of the tales dead men can tell. Here is a 
soldier who looks as if he had just sat down a mo- 
ment to die. Here is one looking at his watch. Here 
is a strange record of a disappointment : a British and 
a German soldier, both already wounded, have evi- 
dently made terrible efforts to get at each other. With 
hatred in the face of each, they had just reached to 
within arm's length, not after all to fight, but both to 
be subdued in death. 

In the old front line of the enemy, or what remained 
of it, we halted and prepared a temporary dressing- 
station. Those dug-outs that were not destroyed were 
cleaned. The place was a labyrinth, gruesome enough 

IQ4 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

in its debris and flavor as of the tombs. At corners 
and junctions of trenches we were confronted with lit- 
tle notice-boards in neat German characters. At one 
point there remained fixed into the trench wall a 
memorial tablet of wood, carved with a gothic trefoil, 
and inscribed to some soldier of the Vaterland. At 
the point where the railway line crossed the trench 
system we set a water tank, and made a cook-house. 
We were a little colony of living among troops of the 
dead. Right and left, backwards and forwards, round 
every corner, lay the grey bodies. They were not con- 
spicuous, but they were there. At night on duty with 
a covered lamp and a surgical haversack when the 
stumbling stretcher-bearers had gone for the moment, 
and when thick snores came up from dug-outs where 
soldiers slept; the stars shone down upon us and pin- 
points of thought woke and danced in my mind. We 
could not see them, but round those shadowy corners 
thev could be felt. They had not dwelt here so long 
without leaving their print on the air. The place was 
theirs still ; only they were dead. Sitting on a petrol 
tin, I leaned back and touched the trench wall with 
my head. Suddenly there ran a slight shiver through 
the air. What fancies were these? — the dead had re- 
sponded. But to what? The sound, whatever it was, 
remained. It was also familiar. It was like the hum- 
ming of the railway lines above us. A far-away 
screech as of an engine sounded and drew nearer. Of 
course, it was only the screech of a heavy shell going 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

over. Besides, the rails had been torn up for yards. 
But still, against all reason, a train was approaching 
down the valley from the direction of the enemy. 
Also there was now another sound — of footfalls in 
the trenches all around. The ghost train came on and 
ran above us — ^an engine and a series of old third 
class coaches, dilapidated and with broken windows. 
With muffled brakes the thing came to a standstill be- 
hind us in No Man's Land. They were now coming out 
from all sides, crowding and lurching down the 
trenches, without arms, without faces (I remember 
one had a head like a paintbrush), and ran out into 
No Man's Land. There were plenty of bullets about at 
night : but of course they did not mind. The dead be- 
sieged the doors of the train and crowded in. So 
much the better, thought I, we shall not have to bury 
them. I felt an irresistible curiosity to know who 
the engine-driver might be ; and crept forward, there- 
fore, by an advance trench to get a nearer view. I 
noticed that some one had written Paris in chalk on 
the carriage doors. There was a faint hissing ahead, 
and presently I caught a horrid glimpse of the engine- 
driver himself. The fire-box door was open and il- 
luminated him. He leaned quite professionally on 
the side of his engine, and rested his chin on his hand. 
What disturbed me was that though grotesque and 
sinister, he was yet familiar. I had seen him before — 
somewhere. He gravely surveyed the jostling crowd 
who so ludicrously strove to open doors without arms 

196 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

or climb into the carriages without feet. He had little 
horns on his head, and his strong arms seemed 
adapted to stoking a fire. Suddenly I recognized him. 
The shock brought me to my senses again. I had only 
dreamed that the engine-driver was the Penseiir of 
Notre Dame. 

****** 

Next morning I saw an officer's servant I knew 
sitting at the mouth of his dug-out, writing in his 
diary. (It was at one time very fashionable to keep 
diaries.) I asked him what he was writing. 

"The Germans," he said. "Me and 'im spent a 
orful night." 

By " 'im" he referred to his officer. 

"How?" said I anxiously. 

"Well, so far we've always had lice, but lice only. 
Now first thing in these 'ere dug-outs . . . first 
night ... a flea ... a blinkin* German flea." 

But the aspect of death, so striking at first, was 
soon worn from the land by ceaseless traffic and activi- 
ties. No Man's Land soon became every-man's land. 
Batteries, French and English, grow up on all sides. 
Convoys appear, halt in lines, and a loitering mule 
snuffs the rank grass. The smoke rises from cook- 
house fires. A motor-cyclist falls off in front of you 
and wants to know where he is. A colonel of artillery 
sends an orderly for some aspirin. 

It is always worth while to watch a battery of 

197 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

French seventy-fives take up a position. With whips, 
shouts, and cris de joie they Hke, where possible, to 
gallop and wheel into line. Then bestowing their 
packs and coffee-mills in a suitable place, the gunners 
— ^themselves clothed in conspicuous blue, with here 
and there a red sash — will seek to disguise their guns 
by sprinkling a little grass over them. This done, 
they will turn their handles like so many barrel organs 
and wake the echoes with a stream of twenty rounds 
or so, just to let the Boches know what to expect 
later on; and so to cards without further delay. 

Before leaving the old German front line, it is in- 
teresting to look back from the German sniping-posts, 
and see how fine a view they commanded. There 
was our communication trench zigzagging down the 
hill opposite, and there was the road on its crest, with 
its row of trees and gaps in the hedge, past which we 
used to walk and hope that the snipers were asleep. 
It seems on the whole as well that they were. There 
was the narrow sunken road, from which only a week 
ago we watched the destruction of the enemy's barbed 
wire by our guns — this wire now in front of us. 

Meanwhile the railway line has been patched by 
the R.E. men, who place bits of wood where rails 
are missing and who contrive ingenious wooden points 
at likely places where trolleys may have an oppor- 
tunity of trying to go in two directions at once. Traffic 
soon starts on this line. The wounded go down the val- 
ley. Tanks of water and stores of all kinds come up. 

198 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTL EFIELD 

Higher up the line some of our men are working an 
advanced dressing-station in an old German communi- 
cation trench. As usual it is surrounded by our guns, 
and is shelled by the enemy a whole summer day. 
Within the A.D.S. the dressers, with rolled up sleeves, 
cut their white and cyanide gauze, count their remain- 
ing splints, and see to it that their precious solutions 
of eusol are not wasted. There is usually a little 
crowd of bearers outside, hot and panting, newly ar- 
rived with a load, or taking fresh stretchers from 
the pile and mustering their strength for a new jour- 
ney. Few people realize the aching, over-mastering 
fatigue of stretcher-bearing after long, unrelieved 
hours. 

The wounded, when properly dressed, labelled and 
passed by an officer, are carried across to the railway 
line to a point at which a little flag waves, and are 
thence despatched on the trolleys back to the cars, 
and so down — 

"To where the dripping surgeons wait/* 
and if they get so far they may well get further, so 
good luck go with them. 

Though there were moments when we looked back 
enviously after those we had dispatched in hope, all 
life, all curiosity impelled forward. For are we not 
helping at the greatest traveUing accident that has so 
far happened to Civilization? Even we — the rank 
and file of the R.A.M.C., abused and abusive — have 
our moments of secret devotion. 

199 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

rT-"""""^"""—"-™-— ■—»-»— .„— 

A squad of eight of us went, wearily enough, at the 
close of an eventful day to relieve the last squad help- 
ing the regimental stretcher-bearers on one of the 
battalion fronts. We were taken by one of our offi- 
cers to the trench and found the aid- post from which 
we were to work. The battalion M.O. was a thin, 
pale man, with deep brown eyes, whose face was lined 
and ashy with lack of sleep. He had a gentle abstracted 
manner, and a high voice. So great was his fatigue 
that every least action and decision required an ob- 
vious effort of will almost painful to observe. One 
of our squad had learnt from one of the last squad 
that he was "a fine man, a Christian, and would talk 
religion." 

The trench, a shallow reserve of the Germans, was 
fairly heavily shelled and gave little protection, but 
he paid not the slightest heed to the bombardment. 
He examined the surgical haversacks we had brought 
with satisfaction, and asked himself aloud whether 
he had a sufficient store of iodine. 

In such times and places human life rests on the 
simplest of medical expedients. The advance dress- 
ing-station may reflect the latest scientific theory and 
provide eusol on the Somme, where perchloride was 
used ten months before at Loos. But the aid-post, 
as a rule, retains the time-honored iodine bottle. 

The M.O.'s vague and expressionless face made 
me feel uneasy, but an incident occurred that showed 
him in his true colors. A heavy shell dropped in the 

200 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

trench. Many were killed and injured, and for an 
instant all was panic. The first thing I saw on re- 
gaining my feet was an officer lying on his back, with 
the M.O. bending over him. Other bodies lay beyond. 
We raised the patient and found a terrible abdominal 
wound. One of our men ran up with a bag of shell 
dressings. The M.O. bound him round, using two 
or three of the dressings, and repeated that he had 
known worse cases survive. 

"He is acting adjutant," he said. "He is one of the 
few remaining officers. Get him operated on at once — 
go with him yourself." What was magnificent was 
his determination in the face of despair, for he must 
have seen, as I could see, that the patient was nearly 
dead already. As we stumbled off with the stretcher 
he almost shrieked after me to keep him alive. 

But the order was not one I could carry out. Be- 
fore we reached the A.D.S. the patient expired. We 
lowered the stretcher a moment to rest. I closed his 
eyes. He was a young man, fearfully wasted, but 
looking noble and restful in death. 

When we returned to the trench again we found 
it had been evacuated by all but a machine-gun squad 
and ourselves. We were still to use one end of it 
as an aid-post. Presently, besides the enemy shells 
that had increased in number, some of our own shells 
began to drop short just behind us. I sat down for a 
moment and asked myself if this was despair! It 
had an effect on the nerves, yet it was infinitely dull 

2QI 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

and uninteresting. At the end of long and arduous 
days to be playfully done in by our own shells was 
all part of the cynical game as we saw it — ^part of the 
soldier's burden, the burden of insignificance. 

But such were not the thoughts of the M.O., who 
came along the trench in a casual way much as though 
he were looking for a collar stud. Suddenly the new 
sound behind us caught his ear. 

"What's that?" said he. "Aren't those our own 
shells falling short?" 

"Yes," said I. 

"What nonsense,'* said he. "We'll soon stop that; 
Where's the nearest telephone?" 

He went off, and before very long the shells in our 
rear ceased to fall. Some wit suggested he might 
have telephoned in the opposite direction as well 
while he was about it. 

At one point we looked up and in the evening sky 
above us we saw a couple of English aeroplanes 
swooping down upon a German, who descended in 
circles trying to escape. Was there no place in this 
material scheme, so clung to by all of us, that was not 
free from the desire of death ? 

We were all anxious for the M.O. to get some sleep 
that night. Small bunks or funk-holes had been dug 
in the side of the trench, and one of these we en- 
larged and filled with dry sandbags and sacking. 
Here we hoped he was fairly warm and comfortable. 
The high explosive shells thumped upon us all night, 

202 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

but there was only one call for stretcher-bearers. 
Next day was something of a respite. The battalion 
rations seemed excellent in quality. Sandbags con- 
taining bacon, onions, bread, tea, butter, milk and 
quince jam were regularly forthcoming. The quince 
jam was at that time, for a few weeks, very popular. 
It came in round tins, in color a pleasing green, and 
in shape very different to the usual Tickler's tin of 
plum and apple. On opening it, wine-colored depths 
of preserved and juicy fruits were revealed. I dozed 
in the early morning, enjoying the absence of shells ; 
but presently a sizzling and a delicious smell greeted 
me. The machine-gun squad proved themselves gen- 
tlemen of high standing in the humanities of war. 
They had been friends together in private life in the 
same city ; had belonged to the same athletic club, and 
had doubtless ridden each other's motor-bicycles. The 
same kind of consideration they extended to us as if 
we had joined their club or were taking tea with them 
after a cross-country run. The fireplace in the trench 
wall was dug slightly larger and a fire adequate for 
boiling four mess-tins was made. The mess-tins, Ger- 
man ones, were then hung on two bayonets over the 
fire. In the early Somme fighting, though the British 
were victorious in arms, a little kultur victory was 
achieved by Germany. For several weeks we took 
over the German mess-tin and discarded our own. On 
account of its light weight, capacity, and design, it 
proved itself superior and won our approval — for we 

203 



FIELDS AND B ATTLEFIELDS 

were all quick to detect anything making for comfort. 
Thus two German mess tins could boil where one 
boiled before,, or, in this case, four Germans instead 
of two English. 

That day passed in comparative peace, remarkable 
for its few casualties, for its showers and a burst of 
sunshine. Towards night the M.O., after a long ab- 
sence, appeared before us on the parapet. He was 
wearing a cape, and his pale face looked paler in the 
gloom. We felt that day had been a calm before the 
real storm. Looking down upon us he ordered us to 
sling our haversacks, and, with our stretchers and re- 
maining rations, follow him to a new position. He 
walked ahead and led in the direction of B. Wood, 
that lay upon our left. 

:(: :fc :|e ^: H: ^ 

The trees of B. Wood had long ago surrendered 
their midsummer leaves, and in the dusk held up 
their stark branches as though asking mercy of the 
smouldering sky. Looking upwards you could see a 
lonely leaf flapping. Stars and rags seemed caught 
in the boughs. To the commoner wilderness of death 
this place was as a step forward into hell : where 
forms of fear had their haunts and evil spirits, all but 
visible, moved in their own paths. The menace of 
outraged Nature breathed in the startling odor of sap 
from thousands of bruised tree trunks. Corpses of 
trees and men mingled corruption, and their limbs lay 
equally broken. 

204 



AN EARLY S O M M R B ATT LEFI ELD 

The M.O., wearing his cape, walked ahead. We 
had entered the wood from the comer near the cross 
roads, and were now wending our way after him. 
The place was quiet that evening: only an occasional 
shell fell and echoed. Sticks snapped under our feet. 
We came at last to a clearing, and descended to a 
trench that ran left and right. It was one of the two 
trenches, running the length of the wood, which were 
held by our battalion. This trench must have been 
eight or nine feet deep, and was so narrow that a 
stretcher fully open could not pass along it. But we 
had not far to go before we turned sharp, descended 
a little passage and found ourselves in a good dug-out 
roofed with three layers of tree-trunks, very solidly 
set. This was our new aid-post. 

The enemy knew every corner of the wood: they 
had the range of the trench and the position of the 
dug-out accurately, but the excellence of their own 
workmanship protected us. The only mistake, from 
our point of view, was that the door now faced front, 
so that a shell by ill luck might have fallen in the 
entrance. 

Next morning a reserve battalion made an attack 
over the heads of our battalion, who thus became a 
reserve in their turn. The enemy's barrage fire grew 
thick and continuous, and the wood maintained its 
sinister tradition. Shells of all kinds flew screaming 
into it as to their natural home. The dug-out was soon 
filled with wounded, who came crawling along the 

205 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

trenches or who were brought in by the stretcher- 
bearers for treatment. To get them in and out of 
the dug-out was difficult enough, but the real struggle 
was getting loaded stretchers across the mud, roots, 
and fallen timber in the wood. Progress was so slow 
and painful that wherever possible four bearers went 
with a stretcher as far as the cross roads; whence 
two would return to the aid-post. For a couple of 
hours, however, owing to the intense shelling, our 
operations were suspended. Down in the dug-out 
the M.O. worked cheerfully, though he looked on the 
verge of collapse from fatigue. Albert, one of our 
bearers who was an excellent dresser, quite unper- 
turbed under such conditions, remained to help. Al- 
bert had plenty of work, but I fancy he chiefly re- 
members searching continuously for the iodine bottle, 
which in the crowd and the semi-darkness was always 
getting lost. Immersed in our work, we came to feel 
that time had stopped, and that we were engaged in 
a void of blood and mud and noise. The creepers 
hanging down over the entrance moved in the draught 
from shell after shell. The crash of falling boughs 
sounded continually, and faces wild with terror ap- 
peared and disappeared at the entrance to the dug-out. 
Although the iodine bottle continued to elude him, 
the M.O. never swore. On one occasion, after a crash 
that sounded immediately over us, he remarked quiet- 
ly, *'The Savior loves us." Certaiiiiy Death with a 
monstrous axe seemed to be striding in the wood 

206 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

above us. The wounded huddled themselves into 
corners as far as possible from the door. I went out, 
on one occasion, into the trench and saw that the 
troops were on the verge of panic. The strain of en- 
during for hours together the peculiar nameless hor- 
ror of this place without any allaying occupation was 
too much for flesh and blood. Then it was that some- 
thing wonderful happened. In a lull of a few seconds 
a bird sang three notes. They were notes full and un- 
bearably sweet, and had an effect indescribable upon 
those who heard them. Oh, Life ! Exquisite and fan- 
tastic Spirit! Now we might live or die, but we had 
heard the nightingale as surely as that monk of old 
who listened once and found himself an old man. We 
are old too. With death, despair and dullness we are 
utterly familiar. Yet nearer, more familiar, closer to 
our souls than death to our bodies art Thou who 
singest. What matter three notes or a century of 
song? 

The storm closed over us again, and the next thing 
I remember was the figure of a man mad with terror 
who rushed into the dug-out holding his back and 
shouting, "Fm hit in the liver, Fm hit in the liver." 
The M.O. silenced him at once. He had been badly 
bruised in the back and now sat whimpering in a cor- 
ner, but he was temporarily insane through fright. 
As I was to go back on a message for the M.O., I took 
him and another wounded man with me. The other 
patient had been badly hurt in the foot, but he took 

207 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

my arm and walked with assistance. He was a small, 
conscientious man, who talked continually and cheer- 
fully as we picked our way through the trees and 
shrubs or strove to stand upright in the mud. But the 
madman ran ahead, crying to us and waving his arms. 
We went very slowly, and would overtake him at cross 
paths where he crouched behind a tree-trunk, peeping 
out like a hare. The branches here and there had 
been bent into fantastic shapes resembling bowers 
and trellises. Shrapnel burst frequently over us and 
made a strange knocking sound against the timber. 
Boughs and whole trees crashed to the ground, and 
the sound rang and mingled with homeless echoes. In 
the pitiless light of day the wood was more terrible 
than at dusk when the eye could not penetrate its 
naked aisles : the smell of sap persisted like a poison in 
the nostrils. 

But the barrage was more intense behind the wood. 
I gave the madman directions as to getting to the near- 
est communication trench, and he flew off at once, 
though we told him he was safer with us. We never 
knew whether he reached the A.D.S. in safety. He on 
my arm smiled and apologized for going so slowly, 
though each step must have hurt him. He maintained 
his conversation in an even voice, and mentioned that 
he had left his best friend behind him. 

"Eh, but he were a good pal to me," said he. 

As we passed the cross roads the shells were falling 
fairly thick, and we pulled our helmets well down 

208 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

over the nape of the neck. Meanwhile the conversa- 
tion had taken a religious turn, and I heard him say- 
that he believed in Christ very firmly, and so was not 
troubled with personal fear. As he spoke a large 
shell, known as a coal-box, fell about twenty feet on 
our right. Clods of earth pelted us, and the smoke 
rose like genii from a bottle. The thought occurred 
to both of us that the thing was an apparition of evil 
taking its place captiously beside his declaration of 
faith. He raised his collar as though at a thunder 
shower. With his arm in mine I did not even feel 
surprised at the absence in myself of the common 
sensations of fear. We did not alter our pace, and in 
about ten minutes had crossed the barrage area. When 
we came near the advanced dressing-station I directed 
him and said good-bye. I had never met as brave a 
man. 

On my return journey I had occasion to pass the 
trench where the day before we had held our aid-post, 
and where we had eaten quince jam. I found with 
horror that the place was now obliterated by shells, 
and that the machine-gun squad, our hosts, were no- 
where to be found. I remembered guiltily that I 
had wanted to remain in this place, and paid a 
mental tribute to the M.O.'s instincts in such 
matters. 

Then I continued my return journey to B. Wood, 
following the same route, familiar by now. First 
came the shallow communication trench, then the open 

209 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

fields, then the cross roads with its drunken sign- 
board and shell-pitted pavement. 

But it was no longer for me a place of terror. 

As before, the genii arose captiously on every side, 
the air was full of uncouth sounds; but it was here 
that that wounded man on my arm had spoken his 
astonishing words and delivered me from the tyranny 
of fear. 

I, too, had believed as he had believed; but it 
seemed marvellous and as though I had read it in a 
tale that I should have been bound with one at such a 
moment whose faith was greater than my own. 

I reached the corner of the wood and paused for 
a moment. The poisonous odor of sap greeted 
me, and at once the figure of that other man mad- 
dened by fear seemed to peep at me round the tree 
trunks. 

Then countless other dryads appeared, terror-haunt- 
ed, and amongst them the figure of that German 
prisoner, mad and compassionate, who had knelt 
beside his friend, and whose lunatic eyes prophesied 
to us what we in our turn would have to endure. 

And what of these? 

Is there any triumph for the grown man rejoicing 
in the strength of his own spirit or of God's, while 
hundreds of children, while one child is driven mad 
beside him? 

Rather there is more mercy in these blundering 
shells, more truth in three notes of a bird sung in the 

210 



AN EARLY SOMME BATTLEFIELD 

storm, than in all the half -creeds and half -righteous- 
ness of men. 

Here in this scar across Europe, between the op- 
posing lines of guns, I knew that both the strong and 
the weak offered equally to a spiritual God their cour- 
age and their terror in protest against every false 
compromise between good and evil that has gone to 
produce — this. 



211 



CHAPTER XI 
"what is your religion?" 



"And solemn before us 
Veiled, the dark Portal 
Goal of all mortal: — 
Stars silent rest o'er us, 
Graves under us silent." 

— Goethe. 



IN the hot July night the night Sister came slowly up 
the ward between the beds. She had passed down 
a few minutes ago; now she was coming back. She 
moved like a figure of fate, the shaded lamp she car- 
ried in her hand shone on the underside of her chin 
and on the tip of her nose. Some of the patients 
groaned in their sleep. Others watched her apathe- 
tically as she passed. 

I whispered to myself, "She likes the Australian in 
the next bed better than she likes me." Then sud- 
denly I fell through a pit into a restless land, which 
was a method of going to sleep. 

I was very busy carrying my own leg on a stretcher 
through Montauban. Chatham was the other bearer, 
and Albert walked beside me repeating, "It's all right, 
sergeant. It's all right." At times we halted and lay 

2.12. 



'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?* 

flat on the ground and began talking about various ir- 
relevant things, while flights of gas shells passed over 
us with a long screaming sound which never stopped. 
We went on through a shapeless land; but when I 
cried "Halt," Chatham would not obey me any more 
and presently I realized that I was on the stretcher 
myself. I said good-bye to my two friends and felt 
very sorry to leave them. I was now in the company 
of others and we seemed to be rumbling and rolling 
along a trolley track. Lifting my head I saw another 
man beside me on a stretcher and recognized him as 
a gunner we had ourselves brought in an hour before. 

"We meet again," 1 said. 

He did not reply. He was terribly changed in so 
short a space of time, but I recognized him perfectly. 

When we came to the ambulance cars, or flying 
mortuaries, as the orderlies called them, we were taken 
off the trolley and laid on the ground. The orderlies 
lifted us and moved us about in an unconcerned man- 
ner, shouting and talking to each other as they did so. 
"I suppose I looked and talked like that when I was 
one of them," I thought. 

But the gunner was not put in a car with the rest 
of us. 

"He's dead," said an orderly. 

Then began a very long jolting drive. I could not 
help thinking of the gunner whom I had caught up 
on his last journey for no apparent reason, unless it 
were to see him die. He had been knocked over by a 

213 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

shell on the road near our dressing-station, where we 
found him lying on his back looking quietly up at the 
sky. He had a leg off at the knee, "It's funny how 
differently men take it," I thought. "Some will call 
for their mother for two hours. Some will lie like 
this, like children on their backs in the grass." 

Then when we had brought him to the dressing-sta- 
tion the officer swore at me for looking at him and 
doing nothing. Others dressed him, not I ; I could 
only look at him and loiter about. When he and 
other patients had been carried away there was an 
interval of about twenty minutes before the shell fell, 
during which the station was free of patients. Dur- 
ing that time I realized we were all half dead with 
fatigue. We stood about, moved from one place to 
another, and stood again, like pawns in a game, wait- 
ing. Then I went down into cavernous shadows. 
What if that shell need never have fallen, killing none 
but our own bearers, killing my brothers? I seemed 
at grips with Destiny herself, like a lunatic wrestling 
with a tree. 

Presently I found Mack beside me in the car. Other 
friends had come to say good-bye, but Mack remained 
beside me for no other reason, but that that was his 
character. He talked in an even voice and I seemed 
to steal strength from his for the journey before me. 
Then he, too, said good-bye and returned to his cor- 
ner of that evil land as Chatham and Albert had done. 

For a long while I was alone in a horizontal crowd, 

214 



^WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?^ 

all flowing in the same direction. Once I spoke to the 
man next me, a sergeant-major who was covered with 
wounds. He was an elderly man with a quiet fatherly 
manner. His conversation grew less and less, and 
presently he grew worse. They stopped the ambu- 
lance train and left him. 

"Change here for Heaven," said a witty orderly. 

We started again. From my position on the floor 
of the train I continued to watch the tops of the pop- 
lar trees pass by one after one. 

Then another orderly with an enormous book came 
along jotting down our religions. "What is your re- 
ligion?" he roared in my ear. The thumping of the 
train suddenly became intolerably painful. I sat up 
and found myself awake, staring at the night Sister 
who came towards me without altering her quiet de- 
liberate pace. 

"Did you call forme?" 

"No, Sister." 

"As you are awake now I will do your dressing." 

The saline dressing was very painful and fatiguing. 
The night orderly held the lamp while the Sister un- 
bandaged my leg. She was highly trained and all her 
movements were quick and even, but not mechanical. 
She had also preserved a disciplined sympathy which 
is quickly detected by patients, however sternly it is 
overlaid. To suffer pain from others is soon to per- 
ceive their character. This woman did her work in- 
exorably, but the pain brought no resentment with ife. 

215 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

I could see the orderly's profile as he held up the lamp. 
He often glanced at me over his shoulder with a look 
half inquisitive, half professional. When the dressing 
was over I waited expectantly for a mug of warm 
milk. Every night I was afraid she would forget, 
but she always remembered. To-night she also 
brought two tablets of aspirin. 

I fell again through a sudden hole into another 
realm. But this time I dreamed I was dead. 

I passed several beings, one of whom came close 
to me and said, "I'm very sorry for all you young 
fellows, you haven't had much of a time." 

I acknowledged him vaguely and went forward 
moved by a pleasant impulse like that of going to 
meet friends. 

Then another person met me and accompanied me 
on rny way. He spoke reasonably and I felt a rare 
pleasure — that of listening to, and following a power- 
ful and enlightened mind and understanding each 
step in his discourse. At every step I v/eighed the 
idea he put forward as impartially as if it had been 
my own, and at each step the joy of perception and 
understanding increased. 

At one point the path seemed difficult. I took his 
arm and the movement was familiar. I wondered 
whether we were walking or thinking, our progress 
seemed as much a thing of the mind as of the body. 
The enjoyment connected with it was an athletic en- 
joyment. 

2l6 



'WHAT IS YOUR RELIG ION?' 

At one point, in reply to some difficulty I had put 
forward, he replied, "You have still the idea of suffer- 
ing too much behind all your thoughts. Of course, it 
is natural, seeing what your activities and those of 
your friends have been. On earth men are much 
concerned with suffering and have coupled it with their 
highest achievements, with Love and v/ith Knowl- 
edge. Consider the Poet of Galilee. Men have rec- 
ognized his idea of a Kingdom as a great achieve- 
ment, they have called it a Revelation, yet they have 
emphasized his suffering above the suffering of 
others. 

"Men have instituted a realm of suffering called 
Hell and many of their finest minds have been more 
interested in it than in Heaven. Heaven where there 
is no suffering — as they conceive it — fails to interest 
them. They have chosen a word to stand for their 
conception of Heaven — a, word which has become al- 
most a term of contempt — Utopia. Yet you will fol- 
low me I am sure when I say that the amount of suf- 
fering men have added to the Galilean Idea is a 
measure of the importance they attach to it. Rather 
than think of it in the light, of Utopia, they have 
coupled it with untold suffering and sacrifice. 

"Men dread Security more than they dread Inse- 
curify. That is the cause of their hatred of Utopia 
and of their mistrust of Heaven. Suffering is insisted 
upon as a token of the risk without which life is con- 
sidered undesirable." 

^7 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

■""'" "" — "" ._ I 

"Undesirable !" I cried, "it is only because they lack 
imagination. Desire follows upon vision ... I be- 
lieve that. ..." 

"You have faith," he replied. "But men can attain 
v^hat they truly desire." 

It was here that the path seemed difficult, and I 
took his arm. Presently he laid a curious image be- 
fore me. 

"You all remind me," he said, "of men sitting 
blindfolded engaged in a life's work of reading in 
braille and studying existence by that means, with in- 
credible labor, when you have nothing to do but untie 
your own bandages and use your own eyes. 

"Now the mastery in braille achieved by some 
minds is magnificent, nay, stupendous. By its means 
they have perceived nearly every phenomenon of life 
except light. But their achievement and their tragedy 
go hand-in-hand, for presently they forget that they 
have eyes, and some of them truly go blind. 

"The Poet of Galilee, who identified himself com- 
pletely with his Idea, called himself the Light of the 
World. He pointed out once and for all that the 
simple man who has never blindfolded his eyes, or 
the wise man who has torn off his bandages, and 
trusts his own vision, is wiser than the most accom- 
plished scholar of life in braille. For this vision, this 
direct perception of Life, means to have nothing in- 
terposed between yourself and it, means to mingle 
with it, to live it in the very act of perceiving it. By 

2l8 



*WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' 

this means Desire and Vision are perceived to be the 
same. By this means only consciousness of Life and 
Life itself can go forward hand-in-.hand, and happi- 
ness rather than suffering takes its place with Knowl- 
edge. 

"Wherever consciousness of Life becomes sepa- 
rated from Life itself suffering is insisted upon as a 
value rather than joy: and it has been the mark -^f 
some of the very finest and most penetrating minds. 
But it is false to ascribe that suffering to the Poet of 
Galilee. Men have attributed to him their own weak- 
ness. He is the man of all others whose capacity for 
life is equal to his consciousness of it. 

"For you and the uncounted ones you love, sunk in 
the sufferings of your time, do not be misled by those 
sufferings. All your discoveries, all your activities 
must now be in the direction of Life itself. 

"Remember joy." 

The word leaped in my brain. Ah! I had really 
forgotten, not the word, but the thought. Joy, peace, 
good-will! I turned, but my companion had gone. 

I pondered the thought he had left with me, and 
it begot in my mind a desire for companionship. All 
at once I seemed to emerge upon a sunny pathway 
where there was short grass under my feet. 

Around me on all sides now expanded the loveliest 
landscape, in which natural objects appeared to me so 
transfigured, yet so familiar that on beholding them I 
felt a lifetime of twilight had come suddenly to an 

219 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

end. The radiant air filled all interspaces with a beau- 
ty of its own. The grass path on which I found my- 
self was bordered on each side by very rich deep 
grass in which at times I caught little gulfs of blue as 
of gentians. The trees were of the two kinds I 
loved, tall aspiring French poplars and aspens, stand- 
ing in groups and yielding to each other in magnifi- 
cence, and in other directions the broad English oak 
islanded in the grass and complete in itself. 

At first I did not notice the sound of birds, for 
there was no special note to attract attention. Then 
gradually there was revealed a morning throbbing, as 
it were the essence of sound itself, in which when I 
listened attentively all varieties of notes could be dis- 
tinguished: the long flute of the thrush, the happy- 
hearted cheeps and chirping of the finches, the dream- 
calling of the warblers, and sounding above and 
through the whole, certain eternal overtones coming 
from myriads of humbler little voices. 

As with sound, so with light; objects near and far 
were seen with the same delicacy as on a distant hill- 
side. Light seemed not concerned to show the bound- 
aries of things, but to shine through each and all. By 
an effort of thought, individual shapes and colors 
could be perceived and intensely enjoyed, but with a 
kind of exotic enjoyment as of a swimmer who lingers 
before his plunge. 

Then I realized as I looked and listened that I did 
not truly desire to make distinctions or to seek out 

220 



'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' 

one impression lovelier than another. I recognized at 
last that what was so exquisitely familiar as to fill 
me with the profoundest joy, was the experience of 
harmony. 

A group of men came towards me along the grass 
path, occupied with shouting at the top of their voices, 
laughing, and making conversation. I recognized 
them almost immediately as some friends I had long 
held jealously in my mind. Joe was amongst them, 
the first of us to be killed on the Somme, Conlan, who 
was killed at the water-cart, Binny, who used to sing 
Scotch songs, and other stretcher-bearers who had 
been killed. 

A well-known voice came to my ears: "Sergeant. 
. . . Why, here's sergeant," and I quickened my 
pace towards them with a feeling of indescribable 
joy. But before I could reach them, a grotesque 
figure made a sudden appearance beside me and be- 
gan asking me fussy questions. When I first saw him 
my heart sank. He asked me what my religion was 
and I burst out laughing. Then he said he was an 
Army Chaplain and very worried because some of 
his C. of E. boys refused to rise again. "They won't 
rise again," he repeated mournfully. 

The voices of my friends now seemed very near, 
but I knew that this was so ridiculous that I must be 
dreaming. 

"They won't rise again, though I mentioned the 
'atonement,' " wailed the voice in my ear, and almost 

2Zl 



FIELDS AND BA TTLEFIELDS 

immediately I felt myself surrounded by walls of 

pain. 

I woke. 

****** 

The day's work had begun in the ward though the 
light was scarcely more than twilight. I stared in 
front of me for some time while I tried a more com- 
fortable position for my splint. Then I turned to see 
if the man in the next bed was awake. 

He was an Australian, known as No. 34, that be- 
ing the number of his bed. He was now sleeping 
very lightly and I could almost see his eyes through 
his transparent eyelids. Sleep visited him less even 
than she visited me. I knew that in a few moments 
he, too, would be awake and glancing up and down 
the ward in his restless way searching for any object 
of interest. 

I had conceived a great admiration for this man and 
used to lend him my safety razor. When he was 
asleep like this I realized by comparison, his extra- 
ordinary vitality. He was not subdued or irritated 
by pain, but appeared to flicker in and out of con- 
sciousness; when he was not talking or laughing he 
lay thus like an extinct volcano, asleep or with closed 
eyes. 

Looking up and down the ward I could see who 
were awake and who were enviably asleep. 

"That chap opposite sleeps all day and all night," 
I thought irritably. 

222 



"WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' 

Pat, the Irish Fusilier in the special bed, was 
awake. He was the show patient of the ward, and 
used to be allowed an ounce of champagne with his 
dinner. Distinguished visitors always stopped op- 
posite his bed. He had frequent painful dressings 
against which he used to protest too much, so that no- 
body minded him. 

Now he was lifting his arms up and down hke a 
child and humming to himself. 

Next him came a very thin man, an Englishman, 
with a leg that might have to come off: a man who 
suffered a good deal, but who never made a sound 
and who used to bite his blankets during his dress- 
ings. Next came a wild Canadian, always called 
Happy, who never spoke but at the top of his voice 
and who slept all night like a top. Next him came a 
little Scotchman with deep parallel lines on his fore- 
head, who had been in hospital as long as Pat, and 
who gave vent to bitter thoughts. My immediate 
companions included three Australians, No. 34 on 
my right, one on my left called No. 33, and a middle- 
aged Australian farmer opposite who had a fatherly 
manner and was only slightly wounded. 

This was our community, consisting chiefly of leg 
cases. But beyond our land of legs lay other zones 
with other inhabitants, of whom we had vague re- 
ports from time to time, notably of one who had lain 
for five days in No Man's Land, and of another 
who owned three chintz bags full of personal kit. 

223 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

The fatherly Australian opposite was awake. I 
caught his eye across the bed-clothes. We were think- 
ing of the same thing. 

"Is that cup of tea coming round this morning?" 

"I hope so — it's the best meal in the day." 

"If I don't get it, I don't shave to-day, that's all 
about it," I said. 

Shaving was a fatigue, like reading, like having 
one's bed made, like writing home, like everything 
in life. 

But we were not disappointed. Wee Willy, the up- 
patient, who was as useful in the war as three order- 
lies, came skipping along the beds with mugs in both 
hands. I watched him coming as an animal at the 
Zoo watches a visitor with buns. He left a mug with 
me half full of freshly brewed tea. I drank it, and 
felt immediately that I would like to read a book, then 
I changed my mind and decided to think. 

"What pudding is it for dinner to-day?" I thought. 
"Is it apples after dinner, or had we them yesterday?" 

My Australian friend on my right suddenly opened 
his eyes and tried to sit up. 

"By Jesus!" he declared. "Have I been asleep?" 

At that moment the night Sister came up with a 
thermometer and silenced me by putting it into my 
mouth while No. 34 had a conversation with her. He 
said his leg was giving him jip. She immediately went 
down on her knees beside him and began arranging 
small pillows round his splint. 

224 



'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' 

■ ■.I.I.I.I...I- ■ —■ ■ ■j 

With the thermometer in my mouth I watched her 
angrily. She spoke Httle, but after each arrangement 
of pillows she looked enquiringly at No. 34 with her 
fine gentle eyes. 

"Of course," I thought, "she likes him for his wild- 
ness and wit, and because he's an Australian. Wish I 
was an Australian. ... He has probably forgotten 
that he has to decide to-day whether to have his leg 
off or not. But why not take a little notice of me 
too? . . . Women are all like that, all have their 
favorites ... all take the personal attitude. . . ." 

No. 34 thanked her and said he felt easier. "By 
gum, I wish you'd stay on duty and do my day dress- 
ings. The other woman's got fingers like claws." 

We all knew he alluded to the day Sister. 

Up the ward from the other side now came a very- 
tall willowy lady, with a patient face. She was 
dressed distinctively as a superintendent, and she was 
making her morning rounds. She carried three sweet 
peas in her hand. 

She graciously noticed each patient as she came 
along. 

"No. 33," she said to the patient on my left. "How 
is No. 33 this morning? No. 19" (to me), "how's 
the leg? No. 34, you slept a little, I hear. What, not 
slept at all? I call you three the three legs. It's 
Sunday morning and the sun is shining." 

Thus she murmured to us and passed on. But she 
had left the three sweet peas with me. 

225 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"Of course," I thought, "the point about women is 
that they remain human in spite of everything. . . . 
They think of us as individuals . , . they take a per- 
sonal interest." 

The day orderlies had now come on duty and were 
polishing the floor in their brown canvas shoes. 

"What sort of a bloke is that tall beggar," said 
No. 34. "Think he looks as if he'd buy me some 
greengages ?" 

"Better ask Wee Willy," I said. 

"Hey," called out No. 34. "Orderly, get us some 
greengages to-day ; a franc's worth." 

"All right, chum," said the orderly without arrest- 
ing the steady slide of his polisher. "You'll get your 
greengages all right." 

"A say, Orderly," called out Happy the Canadian 
from the bed opposite, "think the doctor'!! mark me 
for Blighty to-day?" 

"All right, chum," said the orderly as before; 
"you'll get to Blighty all right." 

"Try them after dinner," I said to No. 34. "It's 
too early in the morning." 

Breakfast came along and the night Sister passed 
us as she went off duty. She nodded to us as she 
went past. She carried a little woollen coat over her 
arm. 

At breakfast No. 34 found an address on his egg 
and asked us all whether he thought he ought to an- 
swer it or not. "It don't seem right to eat the egg 

226 



'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' 

and not obey the instructions on the lid. "Amy Smith 
. . . Wesley Cottage. ... Do write. ..." 

The egg was eaten but not answered. 

"Does he remember about his leg?" I wondered. 

After breakfast the day Sister came up the ward 
saying "Morning" to every one as she passed. When 
she reached the end of the ward near the nurses' bunk 
she called out to one of the orderlies in a shrill voice : 
"Rumsden, be quick and get the gramophone ; it's our 
day for it, don't you remember? quick, or we'll lose 
it, and then I want you to get me that irrigator from 
the Dispensary — ^hurry — fly. ..." 

"All right, Sister," said Rumsden, the nursing or- 
derly, from under a bed. "Hany one would think I 
was a gentleman of leisure." 

"Fly," repeated the Sister, arranging the dressings 
on the trolley and looking at herself in a concealed 
mirror at the same time. Then she went into the 
scullery and came out again. Her voice penetrated 
everywhere. The work of the ward accelerated and 
went forward in a series of little storms. 

The thought of the morning's dressing began to 
darken me. 

On a shelf opposite there was a box with the words 
Michals Stow Away written upon its side. "What the 
hell does Michals Stozv Away mean?" I thought. 

Of the two periods — the night and the day — into 
which my life was divided, I preferred the night when 
that silent woman walked up and down and when so 

227 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

many meaningless objects were hidden from sight. 

The gramophone was brought in and a series of 
rapid tunes were played. The Sister said she knew 
some people didn't care for it, but they were not to be 
selfish and prevent others from enjoying themselves. 
Her arguments were unanswerable. "What about 
that poor devil at the end with a bit of shell in his 
brain?" I thought. "He'll have to learn to be un- 
selfish too.'* 

I longed suddenly for the sight of a friend. What 
were Bill, Mack, Chatham, doing at this moment. I 
felt intensely lonely. 

"This is the meaning of ill-health," I thought. "Iso- 
lation. I and these others are no longer men. . . . 
We have failed to survive the struggle for existence. 
This war is a struggle for existence and we are the 
weak who have gone to the wall. . . . And how 
late the post is this morning." 

I felt very sorry for myself and enjoyed the sen- 
sation. Better any sensation than none at all. 

Then came a moment of sanity. The gramophone 
had stopped. 

"It is well for once to be alone and helpless. It is 
well to depend for once on nothing but the bare level 
of human nature. Now you can test much. ..." 

The gramophone had stopped out of deference to 
the surgeon who had entered, wearing his white coat, 
and was now at the other end of the ward. The 
Sister perceived the fact immediately. She finished a 

228 



'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION? 



slight wound she was dressing, told the patient it 
didn't hurt him because it couldn't, and sent an order- 
ly flying. Then she walked quickly between the beds 
to her trolley of dressings, with arms stretched out, 
and issuing shrill orders. 

"She'll never make a nurse," said Happy the Ca- 
nadian. 

"She'll make a matron, though," said Scotty; 
"they think no end of her here. Wait till you've been 
here long as I have, lad." 

The surgeon was going to diflferent beds, marking 
the bed boards. When he had finished marking them 
he put the board down on the bed in an absent-minded 
way. To some patients he made monosyllabic re- 
marks; others he passed over in silence. His face 
always wore a portentously solemn expression for a 
young man, and was faultlessly shaved. He stood in 
the middle of the floor for a short time speaking to 
the Sister, whose eyes flitted about the ward as she 
spoke, then they both went up to No. 34's bed. The 
surgeon stood looking out of the window while the 
Sister unrolled the bandages. He then bent over the 
leg and looked at it for a long time. Then last of 
all, he looked at the patient. 

He spoke slowly to No. 34, asking him simple 
questions. His solemn eyes looked as if once, long 
ago, they had been human and still had vague recol- 
lections of past uncertainties. 

He was a scientific child. 

229 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

Then another surgeon came up, not wearing a white 
coat, and they looked at the leg together. They 
seemed to communicate to each other without words. 
The leg was broken above the knee, and above and 
below were wounds in various stages of sepsis. 

No. 34 was glancing about with an expression, half 
comic, half Avorried. 

"The wounds are very dirty," said the solemn one 
at length. The other surgeon walked away quickly. 

"There's trousers, puttees, and outfits inside 'em," 
said No. 34. 

The surgeon did not smile, but looked at the patient 
a moment longer than necessary. 

Then he looked again for a long time at the wounds 
in silence. 

"I can't promise to save the leg," he said at last. 

Silence. 

"Much better to have it off." 

"What's the use of one leg to me, with my job?" 

"We can't set the bone owing to the state of your 
wound." 

But No. 34 would not have his leg off. He didn't 
really think about it at all. He knew very well he 
wouldn't. He was not aware of the fact that the 
highest mortality from wounds occurred in cases of 
broken thigh-bones, even without such complications 
as his own. "He doesn't know," I thought, "and I 
shan't tell him. And even if I did it would make no 
difference." 

230 



'WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' 

i 

The surgeon said, "We will do our best for you," 
and as he said so, his blind face tried to express some- 
thing but failed. But as if to atone, he looked again 
at No. 34 longer than was necessary. For a moment 
I felt sorrier for him than for the patient. He turned 
to the Sister and told her to get some Caryll tubes 
ready, and that he would return presently and do the 
dressing himself. 

Then he went out of the ward. 

*'He's 2L cheerful bloke," said No. 34, who was now 
having his bed re-arranged, and a fracture mattress 
put under him. "Sister," he continued, "what's the 
use of one leg to me on my job digging, pipe-laying, 
and knocking round?" 

The Sister laughed, "Ha, ha, ha," and rearranged 
the loops of hair she showed under her cap. She 
added, "I should do what the doctor says." 

"But I was in hospital once before and I got well 
in a week. 

"What with?" I asked. 

"What with? Operation for appendicitis ... in 
Sydney Hospital. I was up in a week, and we had a 
rough house in the ward. ... I went weight-lift- 
ing in ten days." 

The Sister put the finishing touches to his bed 
and removed the section of mattress under his splint, 
in preparation for the dressing. 

"Hey, Sister. . . . Where the devil's she taking 
my mattress to?" 

231 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"You'll be all right," said the nursing orderly. 
"You'll be a pet case. They'll take an interest in 
you." 

"Interest! Great nuggets! They do take an in- 
terest in you here — take away half your mattress, 
offer to cut your leg off, and then tell you to make 
yourself comfortable." 

"Better nuggets here than up at Pozieres," said the 
quiet Australian on my left. 

"Where did you do your digging then?'* 

The Sister had meanwhile gone forward, with her 
trolley table and retinue of orderly and Red Cross 
nurse, to the bed of Pat the Irish Fusilier. She stood 
holding a syringe with sterile hands while the orderly 
lifted the patient by means of the special pulleys on 
his bed. Pat began to call out long before he felt 
anything. "Oh me — oh me, Sister — I'll not be pulled 
up and down this way like a piece of meat on a lift. 
. . . Oh me ... oh me." 

We laughed and continued our talk, but his wails 
made an unpleasant impression. The Sister scolded 
him well and continued her work. 

"He shouts about nothing," said a man opposite. 

"Shel doesn't care — if she does hurt him," said 
Scotty. 

"One fool torturing another — ^and she'll come to 
me next," I thought. 

"Oh me. . . . Ah me. . . . Oh me," went the 
yoice. 



WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION? 



Will the morning never come to an end? 

She came back along the ward and stopped oppo- 
site my bed, while she called out to the orderly. The 
Red Cross nurse came after her pushing the trolley 
of dressings, and when she stopped she looked nerv- 
ously at the Sister. 

"Quick," said the Sister, "we'll do Sergeant next. 
Fetch the saline." 

A patient opposite was nursing his bed-board and 
gazing at it with delight. "Sister," he cried, "I'm for 
Blighty. He's marked me England B." 

She arranged the irrigator over my leg, and re- 
plied to him vivaciously: "You'll be all right then. 
You'll go to-morrow. Mind you write something in 
my album." 

I looked at her and said to myself hopefully, "She 
doesn't mean to hurt." 

The gramophone began again. 

"Don't be too strong-minded, Sister," I said. But 
she looked at me without understanding. 

The saline started to flow and she held the nozzle 
in position. "Wee Willy," she called. "Fetch my 
album out of the bunk, and give it to No. lo.'* 

The world grew gray with pain. 

"I've got it. Sister," called out Wee Willy. 

The gramophone was repeating an idiotic scream- 
ing song that we had already heard three times that 
morning. Cries came through the window from the 
next ward ; they always came at this time of the mor- 

233 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

ning from some unknown patient. They were not 
complainings or protests. They were the cries of an 
animal in pain, and the voice of the gramophone 
could not drown them. 

Michals Stow Away said the box on the shelf op- 
posite, and my brain repeated the words Michals Stow 
Away — Michals Stow Away. This is madness — God, 
for something sweet and sane to look at! Fools tor- 
turing fools — this is the only meaning in life — anony- 
mous suffering with a touch of the grotesque. ..." 

"Sergeant," said a voice, "whatever is the matter?" 
I caught a glimpse of the Sister's face with her ex- 
pressionless china-blue eyes, as through a mist; then 
she went up the ward a few steps, calling out to the 
orderly about patients' dinners. 

I had forgotten that it was not her fault at all that 
I was in pain. I hated and feared her. 

The gramophone continued, the cries through the 
wall answered my own pain, and Michals Stow Away 
waited for me opposite when I should open my eyes. 

But the morning's comedy was not over. 

When I opened my eyes again the solemn surgeon 
had returned to the ward and was engaged upon 
dressing No. 34 in the next bed. The dressing took 
a long time and the Sister stood by, handing instru- 
ments and holding gauze and plugging. The nursing 
orderly also bent over the bed in an uncomfortable 
position holding the leg. 

234 



*WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION?' 

The surgeon did not speak. From my bed, with- 
out caring to notice them, I heard movements and 
the occasional sigh of the orderly whose back was 
beginning to ache. 

Once I looked at No. 34. He was probably suffer- 
ing more than I had done, but he made no sign. I 
wondered what he thought on these occasions. 

Sometimes he drew in his breath through his teeth. 
He wore that look as of an extinct volcano for a 
long while, then he seemed to come to himself and 
made a sign of pain. The Sister, who was not in 
awe of the surgeon, cast her eyes about and laughed 
a little. No. 34 gave her a sharp glance, but he made 
no further sign after that. 

The surgeon worked very carefully and deliber- 
ately. The orderly was right — he had taken an in- 
terest in this case, and he continued to take an inter- 
est. The patient eventually owed to him both his 
life and his leg. 

But this was only the beginning of things, and the 
state of that leg would then have scared any one but 
such a surgeon. He handled and scrutinized the 
Caryll tubes and the syringes as if time did not exist. 
His face was that of a child playing with serious toys. 

At last the dressing was done and he went away. 

Then it was that No. 34 looked very gravely at the 
Sister and said, "Sister, I shall never marry a hospital 
nurse." 

There was silence in the ward and every one in the 

235 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

neighboring beds heard the words. We all laughed 
at first, but No. 34 was serious. 

The Sister was taken aback. "What — why 
ever " 

"You laughed at me just now when my leg hurt." 

"Laughed — I was " 

"No, I shall never marry a hospital nurse. Sup- 
pose I broke my arm and my wife laughed at me?" 

She began to laugh, but stopped. We were all as 
much taken by surprise as she was. 

"I — I was only trying to cheer you up," but with 
his eyes upon her she knew it was not true. 

"I don't care. I shall never marry a hospital 
nurse." 

I was amazed to see that she did not resent him. 
Yet it was nothing less than his ultimate criticism 
of a woman; and this she perceived. She did not 
retaliate, but walked away, and returned continually 
to his bed, asking him, "But why ?" 

In her china-blue eyes there was for once a puzzled 
expression. Her clipped mind fluttered like a bird 
in a snare. 

I thought, "It's no use — his words have achieved 
what no irony, pleading, or patience could have 
achieved — with what intelligence you have you will 
think about it, and talk about it, and tell other women 
about it. But you will never forget." 

Yet I liked her for not resenting him. Long after 
she made him write something for her in her album. 

236 



CHAPTER XII 

HOMO LOQUITUR 

"I love to feel where words come from.'* 

— Woolman. 

THE morning's ordeal in the ward was followed as 
a rule by a comparative peacefulness after the mid- 
day dinner. The Sister, before going off duty at two 
o'clock, had ordered the gramophone to cease for an 
hour or two, because the man with a piece of shell in 
his brain had contrived to fall asleep. 

The glass doors had been opened, and a warm July 
breeze from French fields and gardens entered the 
ward. 

For some time I watched the flies at their antics 
below the tie beam of the roof, darting and clustering 
hither and thither. Then I realized that I was listen- 
ing to the voice of Pat, the Irish Fusilier, and that 
others were listening. Only when the ward was quiet, 
as now, could he be heard speaking in an ordinary 
voice. He always lay on his back, so that we never 
saw his face properly, and he addressed his conversa- 
tion to the ceiling. 

"You may know," he said, "that the best stout in 

237 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

the world is Guinness's, and it's made in Dublin." 

"Guinness's is good stuff," said Happy the Cana- 
dian, "and it'll mix with whiskey." 

"And d'ye know why it's so good?" continued the 
voice from Pat's bed; "I'll tell ye. It's because it's 
made of canal water. It's the canals of Dublin are 
considered such fine water for brewin'." 

But here something occurred to distract our atten- 
tion. Heads were raised from pillows, and glances 
were directed up the ward to an individual who had 
made his appearance and had begun a slow progress 
from bed to bed. 

With some patients he spent a long time; with 
others he appeared to speak for a moment only. 

"Who was he?" we asked. 

Then a rumor came from pillow to pillow that "he 
was asking each patient if he had been confirmed." 

"Confirmed? What's that?" asked Happy of the 
Scot in the next bed. 

"Ask a C. of E. I'm the other religion when these 
blighters come round," said Scotty. 

"Blokes come round askin' this that and the other. 

... I dunno " commented a patient who held a 

Japanese parasol between himself and the sun. 

Then we suddenly lost all interest in the incident 
and continued to listen to Pat. He was saying — 

"I tell ye it's the canal water they use and no other. 
Ask any fella from Dublin. It's the most convaynient 
to use, and they use it. And I'll tell ye this, that 

238 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



once they began for to usurp the old canal boats with 
new boats that were motor-boats, and the oil got into 
the canal and spoilt the water. . . .I'm tellin' ye 
the truth. . . . And then there was the divil to pay, 
and Guinness's had hundreds of barrels returned 
. . . well, there was a little revolution in Dublin 
about it." 

"And what did they do?" asked some one. 

"Well, they took off the new boats off the canal and 
used the old ones. They had to. . . . There was 
some people said Guinnesses stout was the will o' 
God." 

We all laughed at this. 

"My life, he's a rum bloke, ain't he?" said the Aus- 
tralian in the bed next to mine, who was always 
called No. 34. 

"He's barmy," said a quiet Englishman in the bed 
next to Pat. 

"A bloody unexpected bloke," said No. 34. "I likes 
them." 

"Well," said Scotty opposite, "if Guinness's stout 
is the will o' God, Fll take to releegion." And for 
many of us that was the only occasion on which we 
saw Scotty smile. His name was Drury, but he was 
always called Scotty. 

'You're right, Pat," shouted some one, "there's no 
living without beer." 

Any further remarks from Pat's bed were drowned 
by the three Australians, who under a sudden inspira- 



239 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

tion began to speak together about their own country. 
I was glad of this, and felt that one of those moods 
had fallen upon us in which men will beguile them- 
selves with their own minds. 

The fatherly Australian in the bed opposite began 
to describe the small farm he had left in charge of 
his partner. He mentioned facts only, but I seemed 
to get a picture from his words. He had not been 
as badly wounded as most of us, and his energy 
persuaded us unconsciously as we listened. The 
other two Australians threw in remarks from time 
to time. 

He seemed to be looking at a wide, flat, rather 
parched country shaded at intervals by tall trees under 
which the sheep gathered for shade. Big fences ran 
in straight lines to the horizon, and cattle stood lazily 
by the banks of a river. Through the trees he saw 
his own house; and he mentioned the number of 
horses in his stables. 

"Of course," said he, "we think you don't know 
what living is over here. We have the best cream 
and butter of our own making, and keep our best 
stock for our own meat. Meat meals three times a 
day with puddings and pies." 

"Pumpkin pie!" murmured the Australian on my 
left dreamily. 

". . . And there's no Australian'U eat frozen 
meat. . . . You'll have to do the boys well or they'll 
leave you. . . . 

240 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



"Yes, Fd advise any young chap who'll work to 
come out.. . . And the money's in the land. . . . 

"Fve a young chap now running my farm ; he learnt 
his job under me, and now we share. If I sell out 
after the war and go to Tasmania planting bananas, 
he'll have it all if he wants it." 

For the first time in my life I felt interested in Aus- 
tralia. Lying in my bed I couldn't help thinking about 
that "young chap" who had stayed at home. A pa- 
tient from the other side of the speaker's bed echoed 
my thought. 

"So the young chap stayed and you joined up?" 

"Yes — I don't know, I wanted a bit of a change. 
And he was keen on the work." Then he added, 
"There's not so much of your young and old out 
there." 

"There's a lot to be said for Australia," I thought. 

My friend No. 34 had now taken up the conversa- 
tion, and glanced in his restless way up and down the 
ward as he spoke. "I don't know your Victoria coun- 
try — not much," he said; "I've been up and down in 
Northern Territory and in Weste'n Austraily. . . . 
By Jee, if you're a good cook up there the dollars '11 
rollin. ..." 

"And there's one thing — you never know who 
you're goin' to knock against." 

"You know Kalgouri?" asked the Australian on the 
other side of me. 

"Yes. D'you know it? . . .1 was goin' to say 



241 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

You know the hotel with the penny-in-the-slot piano ?" 

"Yes— I know it." 

"Eh ... we were having a bit of a night there. 
Not a rough house, ye know. . . . And there was a 
little bloke sittin' there I never seen before. We 
didn't know who he was. He seemed a bit down at 
heels and wearing an old pair of togs — so I started 
talkin' to him. ... I thought he looked lonely. We 
had drinks all round ; we got chums . . . see ? And 
this chap . . . after a bit, he said he'd pay for some 
drinks . . . and he was worth half a million dol- 
lars. A nice quiet little bloke, he was. He told us 
about it. He owned a couple of little gold mines 
. . . said he'd had a bit of a surprise. Hadn't found 
'em out more than a month. And we'd chummed up 
with him 'cause we thought he was down on his luck. 
It was through him I got a ten dollar a day job 
afterwards." 

"You never know your luck, and that's a fact," 
said No. 33. "I remember once I met a Yank in Syd- 
ney — said he'd come to Sydney to learn the English 
accent. ..." But this promising story was cut 
short by Scotty, who half raised himself in bed and 
interposed a passionate utterance. 

"Well, how you chaps could 'a been such thunder- 
ing fools as to leave your farms and your ten dollars 
a day and cross half the world to come to this — to 
this'' — and he waved a clenched fist at the roof of the 
ward. 

242 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



"Well, what about me?" shouted Happy the Cana- 
dian, apparently waking from a doze. "What about 
me? Walked eight hundred bloody miles to enlist." 

We all gasped at this. "Eight hundred miles!" 
some one said incredulously. 

"Yes, eight hundred miles; and if ye don't believe 
me, look at the map of Alaska and see how else I 
could get from Nome to Dawson City while the rivers 
were frozen. There was a hundred and twenty of us 
altogether came from Alaska. It's States territory, 
but they're mostly Canadians up there. Me and my six 
brothers walked it and dragged a little sledge with our 
packs. The trail was good and hard." 

"What do you find to do up in that country?" asked 
the fatherly Australian. 

"All sorts," said Happy. 

"Done any digging?" asked No. 34. 

"Nope," said Happy. "My old man has a post for 
the Hudson Bay Company. We all helped him and 
did a bit on our own if we wanted. One time I'd go 
after a bear. Or do a bit of dog driving. But I was 
most round the old man's place. There's a lot to learn 
about skins. Now he has only my four sisters to help 
him, and one with a kid. There was seven of us came 
away when we heard about the war. Now there's one 
killed and three of us wounded beside myself." 

"What sort of a country is it?" asked No. 34. 

"You'd not like it," said Happy, rather defiantly. 
Then added in a loud voice, "There's not many likes 



243 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

it — not been born there. It's mostly winter, but by 
God when the summer does come ! . . . Everything 
bursts out on you . . . trees and bloody big flowers 
. . . and all the animals go daft." 

"Nine months' winter wouldn't suit me," said the 
fatherly Australian. "Some of our chaps never seen 
snow till they come to these parts. I'd only seen it 
once myself." 

"Snow. ... I'd give ye snow," said Happy. 
Then in the hot July afternoon he raised his voice 
as though some spirit was speaking through him, and 
gave to us his home in a few incommunicable bursts 
of language. When he had finished he glared at me, 
to whom he appeared to address his remarks, but he 
left before me a vision into which his own rough, 
childish face fitted perfectly: the vision of a land 
silent but for the cracking of pine boughs under snow, 
overshadowed by unsealed mountains and washed by 
seas never free of ice. 

At a point where three trails met was the trader's 
post, his home, and accessible only on his own feet. 
Here the trappers came with their skins, and great 
bargaining was made over them. One of the log 
huts was filled with tinned meats, canisters of coffee, 
and ready-made cothes hanging from the ceiling. 
These the trappers took away in exchange. In an- 
other log hut the skins were sorted and dried. 

In the summer months trees were sawn and stacked 
for the winter, while the flowers sprang and died and 

244 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



birds sang all day long. But in September, when the 
first snow fell and ridged the logs of the huts, the 
blacksmith's hammer rang on the runners of new 
sledges, and at the sound the husky dogs stole back to 
the settlement from the woods and from their summer 
mates the wolves. 

"Guess you'll call it an uncivilized country," said 
Happy after a pause, "but if I could get back to it I'd 
not leave it in a hurry. I've learnt some cruelty since 
coming to civilized parts. If I could once get back 
they'd not catch me in a hurry. I know a few little 
wild places." 

No. 34 called out to him across the floor of the 
ward. 

"By Jee, I know a spot or two in Northern Terri* 
tory where they'd not find me. But I'd take a year to 
get there from here." 

"Well, why did you enlist, Happy?" I asked. 

The Canadian paused for a moment and then said — 

"Because of the adventure." 

"And what d'you think of the adventure?" 

"It's the worst God-forsaken trip I've struck yet." 

Then I asked No. 34 why he enlisted. 

"I'm beggared if I know," he replied. 

"Shall I tell ye why I enlisted?" said Scotty. "Be- 
cause all the other loons did, and there's half the lads 
did the same for no better reason. I know better the 
noo." 

"Know better than what?" But he was silent. 



245 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"Well, anyway," said a voice near by, "Fritz would 
have done us down if we hadn't enlisted." 

"We're not afraid of Fritz in our country," said 
the fatherly Australian — "well, not before the war. 
There were others we were afraid of. It beats me 
sometimes why all our chaps enlisted." 

Then after a moment's silence the thin Englishman, 
who had the bed next Pat, began to speak. He suf- 
fered a great deal of pain from a leg which the sur- 
geon said might eventually have to come off, and dur- 
ing his dressings he always bit his blankets, but 
never uttered a sound. We all thought well of him, 
and were anxious to catch his words. At first I could 
not hear what he was saying because of a staff clerk 
who came up the ward with squeaky shoes and went 
to a bed at the top of the ward. At last I heard. 

"... We're all here in this ward, and we've had 
to pay the price one way or another, but why make 
ourselves out cheap? If chaps can speak plain, we 
can. I reckon the war had to come, and we enlisted 
because it were our duty." 

But at this Scotty half rose on his elbow, and I 
noticed the parallel lines on his forehead due to con- 
tinual pain. 

"Well," he cried huskily, "if this flaming war is 
the will o' God, I'll die a bloody atheist. . . . You're 
right about speaking plain. . . . Christ ! I can speak 
plain too. I ken weel I'm goin* to die. The last five 
in this bed have gone, and that's a fact, for I was 

246 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



in this ward before my last operation. Scotty's to 
ha* seven operations, lad, and die on the slab, I ken 
weel it's a fact. And he's had six. And mind here, 
if I get to heaven some one'll get into trouble, for if 
there's a God Fll want to know why He's a pro- 
German. ..." 

"He's a fiery little bloke, ain't he?" said No. 34. 

"I don't believe much in heaven myself," said the 
fatherly Australian. 

"Austraily's good enough for me," said No. 33 on 
my left. 

The Englishman had turned his eyes on Scotty. 

"No offence, Scotty," he said ; "but there must be a 
heaven, my boy. This place isn't good enough." 

I looked at him with interest. "He's a colonist, 
too." I thought. "A colonist in the spirit." 

Scotty had been lying rather exhausted after his 
last outburst, but he now got an arm out from under 
the clothes and pointed to the little man who was 
making his slow pilgrimage from bed to bed. "It's 
these religious beggars I canna bide," he said. "What 
I want to know is who was Jesus Christ, then, after 
all ? I bet I've suffered more pain in this bed than He 
ever suffered." 

"There was a chap near where I used to work," said 
No. 34, "who got shut up for saying he was Jesus 
Christ. He did. He went up to the sheriff and said, 
*I'm Jesus Christ.' It's a fact. They shoved him in 
clink for it." 



247 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"It's no good talking like that, and it's not right," 
said the Englishman. But the voice of Pat could now 
be heard addressing the ceiling, and we listened to 
him with a sense of relief. 

"Ah, Scotty and me are fed up with no chance of 
getting to Blighty. This Englishman here's a mild, 
faithful fellow. ... I mind once I was that fed up. 
... It was a long while since ... I was that fed 
up in the barrack-room, one morning, that when the 
orderly officer came round and says, *Any complaints ?' 
I stepped out and says, ^I want a razor, sir, to cut me 
throat.' " 

We all laughed. 

"And what did the officer say?" 

"I'll tell ye. The officer was a bloody big feller 
with bristlin' eyes. He called the room to attention 
and sent for a razor and handed it to me himself and 
stood glaring at me." 

"And what did you do?" 

"I thought better of it. It was a fine razor and I 
kept it. But I've often . . . thought since I might 
have used it then . . . and done wisely." 

"By God," said Scotty, "if an officer done that 
to me I'd ha' used it on the spot to spite him." 

"It wasn't the officer I minded," said Pat; "we 
became friends after. I held it in me hands and felt 
the blade and I thought to meself, *Shall I do it?' and 
I give the feller a long look. He knew then I'd do 
it as soon as not, for all I cared for him or the 

248 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



British Army. We were friends after, and I was his 
servant. He was killed a while since. ..." 

"There's a part of the trail where I come from," 
said Happy, "where if you camp for the night they 
say you wake up and want to hang yourself. It*s a 
wild part, and the boys like to pass on beyond it if 
they can, but I've slept there good and warm myself 
and felt nothing. But you'll never get an Indian to 
sleep there." 

Then I realized that this was a debate in which the 
speakers had only their lives for arguments. 

"There's some of these officers have a good time," 
said some one. 

"There's others beside officers," said Scotty: 
"there's lads at home working at munitions getting as 
much pay as a lieutenant-colonel." 

"Of course," said the fatherly Australian, "our offi- 
cers ain't as high and mighty as yours. I'll give the 
devil his due, it's no bloody game being an officer in 
this war, though he can take it out of his N.C.O.s." 

"By Jee," said Happy suddenly, "if an officer hand- 
ed me a razor like that " 

"That's the Army, ain't it?" said No. 34, "each 
man taking it out of the rank below him. That's 
what I hate " 

"It's all right for the man at the top," said Scotty. 

"I reckon not," said the Englishman; "some of these 
O.C.s don't have much of a time. One mistake and 
they're done." 



249 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"But they're not shot for it." 

"They shoots themselves sometimes. Nay. We're 
all in the same boat in the Army. It's the war." 

"It seems funny," I said, "we always seem to get 
as far as *it's the war,' and no farther. But what's 
the war for? We're all here from every part of the 
world with plenty to complain about, yet don't know 
why we enlisted. . . . Well, Happy says he enlisted 
because of the adventure : and Scotty because his pals 
enlisted. But what made his pals and him enlist — 

that's what " 

"Because we were fu'," said Scotty. Whereupon 
every one laughed. 

I gave up the brief attempt, hopeless as a hundred 
others before it. These men, my masters in experi- 
ence and the practice of life, were children when they 
came to reflect. Freedom was the root and medium 
of their lives, but the word was not on their lips. They 
all had this in common — they were unconscious of the 
powers that moved them, apparently. Some could get 
hold of outside ideas, but it seemed that the idea of 
ourselves we could not grasp. 

Meanwhile the little man, who was making his pil- 
grimage from bed to bed, had drawn nearer. We 
watched him now with agreeable curiosity. He wore 
a pea-soup colored overcoat, although the time of 
year was July, with a scarf and a bowler hat. He 
carried a book in his hand. He withdrew himself 
from each patient in turn, and then went bashfully 

250 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



but resolutely up to the next. But the rumor about 
the nature of his mission was a mistake. We learned 
on his near approach that he represented some be- 
nevolent board who had undertaken to inquire at the 
hospitals for missing soldiers. Without asking a pa- 
tient's name, he inquired his regiment and battalion 
and then referred to his book to see if any of the list 
of missing belonged to the same. If so, he asked the 
patient if he knew the missing man, if he knew where 
he was last seen in the field, or if he had heard any 
rumors of him. 

Such inquiries are useful. Men of the same unit 
often have a curious knowledge of each other's do- 
ings, sometimes amounting to an instinct, which is not 
lost on the battlefield. Also they seldom forget what 
knowledge of the kind they once possess. 

The little man had passed Pat, who had given him 
a fine story of a man of the right name but of the 
wrong division. Now he went up to the Englishman, 
who had no information to give him. Next in the 
line was a patient who slept nearly all day long and 
who seldom spoke a word. He was asleep now, and 
the little man having glanced at him withdrew on tip- 
toe. Next came Happy, who sat up and shouted at 
him, "Umteenth Canadian Battalion." The little man 
referred to his list. "I am afraid," said he— "I am 
afraid — I have none of that unit on my — on my list." 

"And a good job too," said Happy, and lay down 
again. 



251 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



Next came Scotty, who was lying with closed eyes. 
The little man went up to him and they appeared to 
commune together. Apparently there were several of 
Scotty's battalion to inquire about. The little man took 
out a note book and began writing. For some un- 
known reason we watched the pair with interest. Then 
he left Scotty's bed, but hesitated and returned: and 
we heard Scotty say — 

"Ye can add another piece of information to thon. 
Ye can add that the man's dead." 

The little man wrote it down obediently, and then 
said, "How — how do you know?" 

"Never mind why I know," said Scotty. 

The little man hesitated, and then said again, "Can 
I have your name, please, in case the relatives of the 
— man care to write to you?" 

"Relatives?" said Scotty. He was now almost sit- 
ting upright, staring at the little man. But he sank 
back on his pillows and said, "Drury — my name's 
Drury too." 

The little man stared at him, evidently thinking he 
was wandering, then hurried on to the next bed. 

And, indeed, when Scotty began speaking again, I 
also thought he was wandering. But he was not. 

"Relatives. . . . Relatives. . . . Once there were 
relatives enough to hear of the death of a Drury , . . 
many would hear and weep, and many would hear 
and rejoice. . . . Ma feyther's feyther had the long- 
est funeral in Paisley. He had the siller, but ma fey- 

252 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



ther poured it all awa' against the wall. . . ." 
Then he lifted his head and stared at me. 
"Did you hear yon wee fella come asking me about 
ma ain brother. . . . Missing, they call him, but I 
ken he's dead. He's pushing up daisies the noo, and 
I'll be doing the same before long, and that'll be the 
three of us. Before this blasted war ma mother had 
three sons. She died after the last joined up a year 
sin'. Jamie was killed at Loos, and the man that tells 
me Jock's alive the day is a liar. . . . 

"A ken weel a'm the last of ma feyther's family. 
"They thought Jock was taken prisoner when he 
was left in the wire, one day we raided Fritz's front 
line. They sent a search party out for him but I'd 
been there before them. He was deed, and I dragged 
him to a wee shell hole and put earth on him. But I 
put my ain field-dressing over 's face. There's some 
afeered of No Man's Land. I liked it. I felt free there. 
I went for a week by nicht and scuffled earth over 
him, and lay close. I got my ain wounds beside him, 
and wanted to bide with him, but they took me awa'. 
"But I dinna tell any speirin folk about him" 
Scotty then spoke of what had once been his home, 
as a dying man speaks. A northern suburb of Glas- 
gow stretches its modern stone-built houses, its shops 
and factories, over what had once been green fields 
and stretches of moor dotted with farm-towns. To 
the north, on a clear day, can be seen the Western 
Highlands, and to the south the smoke of factory 



253 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 



chimneys blowing over Clydewater, and through the 
masts of ocean-going ships. As Scotty spoke he 
seemed to identify himself with his country as com- 
pletely as the previous speakers had done. His land, 
like his mind, had been marred and overlaid but pre- 
serv^ed a wildness and a grandeur of its own, so that 
I could not help thinking of the land Happy had 
described, the land of the next bed. 

But to Scotty's bed belonged something not per- 
ceived in the others. Pain, despair and personal loss 
set him at the moment above the rest of us. But he 
was at all times more varied and more tragic. He 
had with him the consciousness of the past, of turbu- 
lent ancestors and the misgivings of an intellectual 
race behind a tortured and faithless mind. 

While Scotty was speaking, the V.A.D. nurse left 
in charge of the ward went to one of the beds and 
began cleaning the bedstead with a duster and some 
spirits. At first my eyes rested upon her unconsci- 
ously. 

She worked and rubbed industriously; to be left 
in charge of the ward was doubtless a stimulus to 
work. She bent down and passed the duster into 
every nook and cranny of the wire mattress. The 
sun shone on her strong healthy figure and on her 
swift unconscious movements. Once she lifted her 
head impatiently and jerked back the flaps of her cap, 
then she stooped again and continued her work. My 
eyes followed her movements. We knew she had 



254 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



come from a wealthy home. "She, too," I thought, 
"is having her adventures." She was so unHke every 
other person whom we had been considering that her 
presence suddenly seemed something wonderful and 
astonishing. We liked the V.A.D. nurses, and, more- 
over, we often felt that they alone in the other camp 
secretly sympathized with us. 

Then a thought struck me. "She, too, is on our 
side . . . perhaps." 

Scotty's voice ceased, and I realized in a moment 
that I had forgotten about the dying and protesting 
man. 

But others had heard him with deep, unquestioning 
sympathy. 

"So you're the last, Scotty?" called out No. 34. 
"That's hard luck." 

Scotty did not reply for a moment, and then said — 

"And to die among strangers." 

"If this war don't do something, it's the bloodiest 
joke I've struck," said No. 34. 

"They say this war'll end war, but I don't know," 
said the fatherly Australian. 

"Who says so?" said Scotty; "I say we've suffered 
our lot. Let others suffer." 

"That's not right." It was the voice of many 
minds. 

"No," said the fatherly Australian. "We're in for 
the dirt>^ work. Let's get it done while we're about 
it, and leave a cleaner job for others." 



255 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

"But if we don't know what the job is," I said. "If 
we don't know why we enlisted or what's to come of 
it." 

"Well, I'll tell you why I enlisted. I haven't told 
you my story yet," said a voice. 

We looked to the left. The man speaking was the 
Englishman. His voice was weak at first, but grew 
stronger as he continued. 

"It was owing to my wife. You've all been talkin', 
but you've not mentioned your wives yet. Well, it 
was owing to her, and I'm not ashamed of it. 

"When the war started she was bad with consump- 
tion, and I was that put about on her account I had 
no thought for aught else. 

"But she thought a deal about it. 

"Our home was near Manchester, and her father 
he was a local preacher at Preston, and we used to 
go to Preston — see — for our week's holiday at the end 
of September — well, the last week in September. 

"Mind, there'd been a lot of my pals joined up, and 
some of 'em had said to me, they'd said, *Why don't 
ye join up with the lads, Tom?' There was a lot 
went from Lancashire in the early days. 

"But, as I say, I were that put about, with her that 
bad, I paid no heed to them ; but I must have had it 
on my mind, I reckon. 

"But anyway I made up my mind I'd have my 
holiday with the missus, war or no war, and I'm glad 
I had, too. We went all the way from Manchester 

256 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



\- 
to Preston on top of a tram. The doctor at the Infirm- 
ary said she didn't ought to travel by train because 
of not getting the air — see — with her having consump- 
tion ; so we went all the way to Preston on top of a 
tram. 

"By — she did enjoy it, too, and so did Jack — ^he's 
the nipper — well, he's a lad now. 

"I wrapped her up warm, and we took near three 
days to do it, by easy stages. On top all the way 
and the weather were champion. Well, the doctor 
said afterwards it added a year to her life. 

"Well, we slept at a temperance hotel at Bolton one 
night, and at Blackburn the next, and took tram in f 
morning. Took our sandwiches with us. . . . You 
can see the country fine that way, too. Missus she 
kept asking — 

" *Tom,' she'd ask, *what's yon hill over there ?' or 
*I believe I can see the sea.* 

"There's one place you come to over Preston. By ! 
the view's champion. You can see right away along 
the coast, and away to Lancaster and Carnforth. 

"Well, it was on that ride I made up my mind to 
join. But for all that I couldn't abear leaving her. 
But the missus, she'd been thinkin' about it all along. 
I remember well her words, though I can't just say 
whereabouts we were. The car had stopped for a bit, 
and Jack — that's the nipper — was hanging over the 
rail looking at one thing and another, and she had 

257 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

hold of his coat lest he should fall. I remember 
she turned to me and said, 'You're not to study me, 
Tom,' she said. 'Happen if you go, then Jack'U not 
have to go when he's a big lad/ They were her 
words, and I remember them sure as I'm in this bed. 

"After our holiday I joined up, and she stayed 
with her folks at Preston. The lad's living there 
now." 

"I've a nipper myself," said No. 33 across the ward, 
at which the fatherly Australian held up three fingers 
to signify he had that number. The Englishman's 
voice continued — 

"Well, I reckon this war's for them, for him. I 
reckon his mother saw that — then. That's why I say 
it was all owing to her. I've had plenty of time to 
study things out lying here. But it's hard to do the 
thinking and the fighting. This war's not got to be 
a bloody joke. 'Cause I've been knocked about I don't 
want to see him done the same. Not him nor others. 
I want better things for him. . . . 

"If he wants to go to Australia or Canada I'll not 
stand in his way, because I know chaps like you come 
from there, and I'll say it straight, I'm glad I've met 
you. But wherever he goes I want him to have his 
chance. If he has a mind for study and wants to go 
to big towns, I don't care where — England, France, 
Germany ; I want him to go and hear no talk of war, 
and have his fair chance, though happen he'll come 
home to choose his lass. My Christ! I've been a 

258 



HOMO LOQUITUR 



slave — a. slave, compared with what I want him to 
be." 

The speaker ceased. I loked at the man, at his 
pale face now rather flushed, and recalled all he was 
reported to have suffered. I had often watched him 
biting his blanket during dressings, and I knew the 
chances of his death were no less than those of Scot- 
ty's. 

Now I saw him in a new light. 

Then the Australian, No. 34, burst in suddenly, 
"Well, and I'll tell you one thing I've learnt on this 
joint. I'm not set on pegging out like Scotty, and 
I've no kids of my own — none I knows of — not yet; 
but I've learnt one thing, I want my own country 
again, my own life, and to be free." 

"But that's what we all want," I cried. "All of us 
here and in every country at war. . . . That's why 
we all enlisted — for our lives to be free." 

"Live and let live, that's it," said No. 34. 

"Ay, but some has to learn to live and some to let 
live," said the fatherly Australian, "that's where it 
is." 

"That means," I said, "that freedom means an 
agreement." I spoke as much for myself as to others ; 
but I caught the Englishman's eye, and he nodded 
earnestly. 

"And that's what we're learning," he said; "that's 
what the war's for. People must understand each 

259 



FIELDS AND BATTLEFIELDS 

other as we understand each other here and now 
. . . come from all over the world." 

He paused and looked over to Scotty as though 
challenging him. Scotty's reply was unexpected. 

"It's no use argufying wi' fools that believe in God 
— in God and this war." 

"It's not the war, Scotty; there'll always be chaps 
like you. ..." The Englishman was looking at 
Scotty with pain in his eyes. 

"Freedom means an agreement," I repeated desper- 
ately, trying to draw his eyes away from Scotty. At 
last he looked across at me. 

"And for the great freedom," I said — "the great 
agreement." 

He nodded. But he was evidently exhausted: he 
fell back on his pillows almost immediately. Then 
we were distracted by a burst of laughter and con- 
versation from the other end of the ward. The gen- 
eral duty orderly passed between the beds carrying a 
white bucket, full of tea. He seemed to carry away 
with him all our prayers, desires and anticipations. 
When he had passed, No. 33 was again trying to tell 
his story about the Yank who said he'd gone to Syd- 
ney to learn the English accent. 

I recalled what the Englishman had said about it 
being hard to do both the fighting and the thinking. 

THE END 



260 



How five thousand men founded a Brit- 
ish community in the heart of Germany, 

INTERNED IN GERMANY 

By H. C. MAHONEY 

^go pages. Illustrated. $2.00 net. 



IF you would know what life at a German 
prison camp is like, live through it in this 
book. The author, a British civilian, was 
a guest at four, ending up with a long sojourn 
at the notorious Ruhleben. Here is the story 
of the life that he and his fellow-prisoners 
lived; how they organized their own com- 
munity life, and established stores, banks, 
churches, theatres — in fact all the appurten- 
ances of civilized life. There are also numer- 
ous stories of escapes, of adventures in the 
camp and even of the treachery of some of 
their pro-German fellow-prisoners. 

The book shows a side of the war which 
has not previously been dealt with in full 
detail, and it is, besides, an unusual record of 
hardship and suffering and of the many ways 
in which the indomitable spirit of these men 
rose above the trials of prison life. 

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York 



--'"'" "^ ~ TH 




3»fl Pa«res of Exciting V^^^^^^K ^ ^^ Great Game 

Adveature j ^^^^V of Empire I 



MY ADVENTURES AS A GERMAN 
SECRET AGENT 

By CAPTAIN HORST VON DER GOLTZ 

With i6 pages of illustrations. 
$1.50 net. Postage 15 cents. 

FOR t«n years Captain von der Goltz was a 
secret agent of Imperial Germany. In this 
remarkable book he tells the story of his 
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when he was released from a British prison and 
sent to testify in the trials of various German con- 
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twelve chapters, each one filled with incidents as 
dramatic as any in romance, some of them thrilling, 
some amusing, many of them momentous, but all of 
them full of the fascination of real adventure. 

What This Book Tells 

Ten years of German Intrigue in the United States. 

How the German Government betrayed the German 

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The real reason why Germany made trouble in Mexico. 

The German Spy System in the United States and how 

to cope with it. 

Other startling revelations of the secret history of 

today. 

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York 



"Mmm OF npoRTANcr 

By BERNARD ADAMS 

334 PO'Qes. With maps. $1.50 net. 



ii'iyyOTHING of Importance" say the 
I ^y communiques when there is no big 
action to report. Lieut. Adams has 
taken this phrase as a title for the series of 
swift, vivid impressions which compose his 
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"Few, very few books have come out of 
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"Of the scores of books which are pushing 
their way into print nowadays as part of the 
war propaganda, none more truthfully and 
satisfactorily fulfills its mission than 'Nothing 
of Importance*." — The Springfield Union, 



Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York 



The Red Battle Flyer 

CAPTAIN MANFRED VON RICHTHOFEN 



12 mo. Illustrated. $1.25 net. Postage extra. 
At all Bookstores 

By Captain Manfred von Richthofen 

THE most famous of German aviators was 
Freiherr von Richthofen who was killed in 
action in April of this year, after being 
credited with eighty aerial victories. 

This book is the story of this German's ex- 
ploits and adventures told in his own words. It 
is the story of countless thrilling battles in the 
air, of raids, and of acts of daring by the flying 
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"Richthofen's Flying Circus" has become fa- 
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"The Red Battle Flyer" is offered to the Ameri- 
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which, because of its authorship and of the in- 
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prove of interest and value to our own flyers as 
well as to readers generally. 



Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York 



WILHELM HOHENZOLLERN & CO. 

By EDWARD LYELL FOX 

237 pO'ges. Illustrated. $1.50 net. 

A striking account of Germany as it is today, by a 
former war-correspondent, now Captain of Field 
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"It appears to me that you have been strikingly 
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namely, her system of government with its false 
ideals » . , . your book is interesting at this time 
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people." Major General Joseph E. Kuhn, Military 
Attache to Germany, 1915-16, formerly President of 
the Army War College. 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS OF 
THE GREAT WAR 

By FRANK J. ADKINS 

2^2 pages. $i.2§ net. 

A study of the origins and causes of the Euro- 
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"The book as a whole is a singularly just presen- 
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and it is written in a style that draws one on in his 
reading from page to page." — Philadelphia Record. 

THE STORY OF YPRES 

By HUGH B. C. POLLARD 

118 pages. Illustrated. 75c. net. 
The heroic story of Ypres, storm-center of the 
Western Front. 

Publishers, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York 



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